


Pyromancy

by Poppelganger



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fantastic Racism, Fire, Magic, Murder, Mystery, Other, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Reader-Insert, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppelganger/pseuds/Poppelganger
Summary: Magicians have been living quiet, secretive lives ever since sealing the monsters away hundreds of years ago, and their fear of a retaliation long overdue is reignited when the very creatures they once locked beneath Mt. Ebott return to the surface.  As a young magician in the modern age, you've grown up adhering to the rules of your fearful elders all your life, and you're starting to think they're just paranoid.That is, until people start to disappear, and your new friends at the monster bar downtown seem to know more than they're letting on.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set post-Pacifist route.

Your father once told you that magic is the little things.

It’s the silence in the room after the curtains are drawn and the lights are dimmed, setting the mood and getting into the right mindset.  It’s in the purposefulness of your movements, flowing from your brain to your hand as you strike a match and light a candle.  It’s tradition and routine, gazing into the flickering flame nightly and seeing the past, present and future unfold, choosing the visions as much as they choose you.  It’s the culmination of all of these things; breathing even, candle wax dripping, magic flowing.

The magic is in the process, in the ritual, in you.  It’s the sort of thing he said often to reassure you when you were a just a child and you were jealous of the others because they could hear what the earth said or conjure storms.

“That’s because they’re Listeners and Makers, and we’re Readers,” he would say, “They have their magic, and we have ours.  And there's nothing wrong with that.”

Your parents always told you how proud they were, how skilled you were becoming as you grew, but you couldn’t see what they saw and never felt the same pride.  You could not go miles in the blink of an eye like a Traveler or tear a tree from the soil with your bare hands like a Destroyer.  You could not draw up a forcefield like a Writer and you could not serve as the mouthpiece of your ancestors like a Speaker.

“So what  _ can  _ you do?” you remember being asked by one of your peers at some point in childhood, and you answered, “Well, I can see stuff in fire,” and your pride faded with the excitement on their face as you realized you had been blessed with the most ridiculously boring kind of magic that existed. 

Your opinion hasn’t changed over the years, no matter what your family tells you.  If it’s any consolation, whether Speaker or Destroyer, magicians in the modern era have been relegated to history textbook footnotes amounting to, “This person might have been a magician;” few even think you exist thanks to the careful way you live your lives, as you were cautioned by your parents, and they by their parents, all the way back to a time before the War with the monsters. 

You, like most magicians your age, understand why; you studied history and learned all about witch hysteria, the way magic became a thing of fear.  It was this same fear that eventually drove humanity to fight the monsters and herd them below ground, which is where the parts of the story that you do not fully understand begin.

It’s Friday night, and you’re snuffing out candles on your way out of your room, throwing on a jacket and reaching for your shoes, inches from your front door when your phone goes off in your pocket.  You know before you even look that it’s your dad; ever since you moved out, he compulsively Reads to know when you’re leaving the apartment.

**From Dad, 18:08:  
** **Be home by midnight.  Don’t go too far.  No magic outside.**

You roll your eyes and text back a quick, “k,” and you can just picture the frown on his face.  It’s the same spiel you’ve been given every day of your life since you were old enough to leave the house on your own, the same warning that every magician has given their child since the Middle Ages; don’t tarry lest the hunters find you, don’t wander lest you leave sacred ground, and don’t expose yourself, lest you bring the hammer down upon the entire community. 

No matter how dismissive you might seem, you understand the importance of doing as you’re told.  When the monsters reemerged seemingly from myth and antiquity, led from the Underground by a child ambassador, they were not met with open arms.  It’s been a little over a year since then, and calling the peace tentative is almost overly optimistic.  You think magicians are afraid of their fellow humans, of a cold welcome with a living reminder of why they feared magic once.

You think they might fear monsters as well, or rather, a retribution long overdue.

You’re halfway down the block when your phone goes off again, and you check it curiously to find a simple message;

**From Dad, 18:09:  
** **Stay away from fire.**

This is something you have to question.

**From Me, 18:09:  
** **did grandma Read that in the clouds?**

**From Dad, 18:09:  
** **Yes.**

**From Me, 18:09:  
** **was she wearing her glasses?  sure she didn’t misRead it?**

**From Dad, 18:10:  
** **Don’t be a smartass.**

**From You, 18:10:  
** **k**

You love your family, but you think the atmosphere of fear is getting to them more than it should.  Your grandmother, an ouranomacner, Reads the sky every day for some omen of disaster, imparting vague and sometimes nonsensical warnings like, “Don’t pick up any rocks,” or “Take the bus after noon, but not before,” and you do your best to listen to her. 

But fire is your  _ thing _ , just as her thing is clouds and storms and the sky.  Fire is what you Read, so you would know if it was going to hurt you.

You decide, albeit reluctantly, that you’ll try to steer clear, but you also think to yourself that maybe Grandma’s getting a little old.

*

Downtown became a different place when the monsters moved in.

Not ‘bad’ different either, no matter how your sensationalist local news channel might try to spin the story.  What used to be an aging strip mall became a chain of niche stores selling Underground clothing, Underground art, and Underground antiques—almost all of which is just regular clothing, art and antiques but with an off-brand and almost parodic vibe, like cheap knockoffs where the logo is the same but something’s misspelled.  On hot summer days, a Nice Cream vendor wheels his cart along the sidewalk and makes the rounds.  A new restaurant opens in a nearby vacant lot with a neon sign declaring its name, “SPAGHETTI,” with unnecessary looping explosions on the ends.  You’ve heard mostly good, though occasionally frightening, things about it.

The whole area has turned into a snapshot of what most people consider “monster life,” where the curious and the brave go to mingle and get a piece of the Underground for themselves, and all of the tourism has revived what might have become a dead part of town.  A year after the monster’s ascent to the surface, it hasn’t lost its novelty, and your friends are there every time you look up. 

“Oh yeah, we’re at SPAGHETTI,” says the first one you call.  You ask them not to scream the name in your ear; they tell you that’s just the way it’s pronounced.  “We’re trying the hibachi.”

“The what?”

“You know, like at Japanese restaurants?”

“No, I know, but….”  You pause.  “You’re not at a Japanese restaurant.”

“I know, it’s crazy.  They’ve got spaghetti tacos and spaghetti bento boxes, too.  You’ve gotta come down here.”

You frown; you can hear everyone in the background screeching in excitement as flames rise from the sizzling grill.  “I’ll have to take a rain check on that.”

Your other friends are all at the park where there’s a live music event for a spider bake sale—the sign says, “It’s never too late to start a college fund for the next generation of spiders,” you’re told—with an open bonfire.  You’re starting to think you should have just stayed home.  Doomed to spend the evening by yourself, you decide to go somewhere lively and search for bars near your location.  The closest result is “Grillby’s,” and the logo is a little flame.  Does that count?  You decide it doesn’t count.

You nearly walk right by it; it’s a hole in the wall wedged between a nail salon and a suit tailoring shop, both of which are closed for the night.  The hand painted sign that reads “Grillby’s” is little more than a piece of driftwood you would’ve missed it if you hadn’t been looking for it, hanging over a set of descending stairs that lead below street level.  Since you’re already squinting at the sign, you notice tiny markings that you can’t quite make out at the bottom edge, nicks in the wood rather than paint, and you stare curiously at them for half a minute before you remember you’ve got a curfew and hurry down the steps.

Loud chatter and glasses clinking fill your ears the moment you step in the door, and a quick survey of the room tells you that you’re definitely the only human there.  There’s a rabbit leaning drunkenly over one of the booths and a toothy plant beside them patting their back comfortingly.  A middle-aged fish in a wife beater fiddles with the jukebox while a pack of dogs play poker around one of the tables.  The ceiling fan spins in slow circles above you and old US road signs and kitschy vintage posters are plastered on the walls, completing a surreal picture.  The building has an old, Prohibition-era vibe to it that lends to the atmosphere, and you congratulate yourself on stumbling onto such a find.

Which is when you finally lay eyes on the bar counter and realize there’s a small problem;

The bartender is _literally made_ _of fire_.

If you leave now, it’ll look rude or like you don’t like monsters, which isn’t true at all.  You cross the room slowly, trying to appear as though you’re still absorbing the scenery, as your grandmother’s warning rings in your ears, a ghostly and warbling, “Staaaay awaaaay from fiiiiirreeee.”

(You like to imagine she talks like that to your dad when imparting her vague and ominous warnings.)

You slide into the first bar stool you reach, leaving an empty seat between yourself and a skeleton with a plate full of fries and a bottle of ketchup in front of him.  (Him?  It looks like a him.  Can skeletons be hims?)  You only realize when he glances in your direction that he’s the first one to really look at you; no one else has paid attention yet.

“Hey kiddo, haven’t seen you here before,” he says.

You nod.  “Thought I’d try something new,” you say.   _ Also because I’m not allowed on this side of town. _

“So what’re you getting?  If it’s a drink, Grillbz can make just about anything.  There’s fries and burgers, too.”

“I think I’ll just try the fries tonight,” you say, eyeing the bartender out of the corner of your eye.  Grillby nods wordlessly and disappears into the back somewhere, leaving you and the skeleton at the bar.

“You don’t seem to mind monsters.”

You glance back at the skeleton, shaking your head.  “No, I don’t.”

“That’s good.  Could really use more folks like you around here.”

“Around here?” you repeat curiously, “I figured anyone who came here wouldn’t mind.”

“You’d think so.”  He’s still grinning—you don’t know if he can stop, actually, since that’s just how his skull is put together—though he sounds a bit more somber.  “And some aren’t so bad.  but a lot of ‘em only come here to cause problems.  They know we’re in a tough position; if someone comes in and starts a fight, you can bet it’s the monster who’ll get in trouble.”

You frown.  “I’m sorry.”

“Nah. Not trying to make you feel bad. Just glad you’re not like that.”

You glance around the bar when you realize it got quieter and notice a few eyes quickly turn away from you, but the mood is still just as relaxed as before and the chatter starts up again.  You think the other patrons must’ve been worried you’d start something and chose to ignore you, but listening to you and the skeleton talk must’ve put them at ease.  “How long has this place been around?”

“Pretty much forever.  Well, on the surface, it’s only been around a few months, but Grillbz had a place just like this in the underground, too.”

“That’s cool.”

It’s then that you feel a faint warmth and see the bartender returning with your order, placing the fries directly in front of you.  You can’t help but look closely at his hands as he does, the fire swirling into the shape of fingers in brilliantly glowing reds and oranges.  It must be magic fire, you think.

Does magic fire count?  You decide it doesn’t.

“Thank you,” you say and receive a wordless nod in response, and then he’s back to polishing empty glasses.  He looks completely at ease but you can tell he’s tense because of the way the top of his head is flickering, a quietly anxious wavering without too much movement, causing a heat haze in the air in front of him.  If you narrow your focus, you can see small white points behind the frames of his glasses, eyes that rhythmically dim and brighten with the rise and fall of his shoulders.  

When the movement stops, you realize those two points of light—those eyes—are staring straight at you.  Grillby is motionless, one hand still holding a wine glass and the other a wash rag, but he’s stopped to stare across the bar, and you scramble for an excuse.

“I’m—oh my god, I’m really—I’m sorry, I didn’t…I didn’t mean….”  You shrug helplessly.  “I wasn’t staring, I swear.  I was just spacing out.”

Your shoulders tense apprehensively when the silence persists.  Finally, he gives a small, barely noticeable nod, and goes back to what he was doing.  You feel that it’s safe to breathe again and tear your gaze away.

_ He’s kind of hard to Read.  Is Reading people inconsiderate?   _ You’ve never run into this kind of situation before since you Read fire, and you never considered the ethics of Reading one that possessed sentience. 

Your try to distract yourself with your fries, which are still warm, though before you take your first bite, the blue sleeve and phalanges of the skeleton beside you come into your field of vision as he slides a ketchup bottle across the counter.  “Want something to go with that?” he asks.

“Thanks,” you say and accept the ketchup, tipping the bottle to squeeze some onto your fries…

Only for the lid to fall off and the bottle’s entire contents to come oozing out onto your plate.

“Sans, what did I tell you?” the bartender snaps in a hiss that sounds like wood crackling.  It’s the first words you’ve heard him speak all night and it startles you so badly that you jump a little bit.

“Sorry, sorry,” the skeleton says without sounding even the slightest bit apologetic, and you suspect he’s been patiently waiting for someone to sit next to him.  “Sans, by the way.”

“Oh,” you say, still slightly stunned.  You weren’t sure what you were expecting when you went out earlier tonight, but it probably wasn’t this.  You give him your name.

“Nice to meet you. So uh. You gonna eat those?”

You give him your ketchup-drenched fries, as well.

“Let me make you a fresh plate,” Grillby says, glancing back over his shoulder at Sans with a withering look as he disappears into the kitchen again before you can stop him. 

“You okay, kid? I didn’t mean to upset you, it was just a joke.” 

“No, I’m not upset,” you say, “Just surprised, I guess.  Wasn’t expecting it.”

Grillby returns with more fries and you try very hard to glance at him and smile pleasantly without staring too long or Reading too much.  You can tell he’s stressed, maybe upset, by the nervous fluttering of little embers that flick off of him from time to time.  You want to know if it’s because of you, but there seems to be some sort of strange haze around him, obscuring your sight.

You push back the stool and get to your feet.  “How much do I owe you?” you ask.

He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, what?  I didn’t catch….”

“It’s on the house,” Sans explains.

“Are you sure?”

He nods.

“Could I get a box?” you ask, “Sorry, I don’t want to be a bother, but I’m—!”

The room dims just a bit when Grillby turns and leaves again, quickly returning with a Styrofoam box and setting it on the counter.  You thank him and shovel the fries inside.

“Leaving already, kiddo?”

“Yeah, sorry.  Can’t be out too late.”  You offer a smile.  “But I’ll be sure to come back sometime.”

_ Definitely a lie _ .  You try not to feel too bad about it as you tuck the box of fries under one arm and wave back before leaving Grillby’s.  You’re not supposed to be on this side of town; you’re not supposed to be spending time with monsters.

Don’t stay out late, don’t use magic outside, stay away from fire.

Somehow, you managed to break all of those rules.  Dad definitely doesn’t need to know about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've wanted to write for Undertale for a long time and I've finally gotten around to it! This is an idea I've been tossing around for a little while. I hope you enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

“Does anyone know where Dustin is?”

Every week or so, all of the magicians who live in town get together for a clandestine meeting about the recent goings on in the world of those who still know magic.  They do this in the conference room of the public library in broad daylight, which always struck you as not nearly secretive enough, since the only thing deterring a curious passerby is the “room reserved” sign hanging up outside.  You sit closer to the door beside your mother, just as you have since you were old enough to go to your first meeting. 

“No one’s seen him?  This is the third meeting in a row that he’s missed.”

There are only twenty-three magicians who live near Mt. Ebott, so it’s immediately apparent when somebody decides to skip a meeting.  Dustin, who usually sits on your left, is gone again. 

“We’ll just have to get started without him,” Mara sighs.  She’s an old woman around your grandparents’ age with her gray hair cut short above her shoulders who walks in a slow, hunched shuffle, the kind of little old lady who you might mow the lawn for.  She’s also the oldest magician in town and has seniority in your circle; whatever she says becomes the law.  “Listeners first.  What’ve you heard?”

You try to use your phone under the table as discreetly as possible, shooting Dustin a text to chew him out for skipping, and get a not-so-subtle nudge in the shin from your mother for not being quite discreet enough.  You stick your lower lip out in a pout but she ignores you, attention turned to the magician speaking.

A woman who Listens to rocks says she hasn’t heard anything new from the area around the mountain.  “More of the same, chatter about the monsters who pass through.”

“Anyone of note?”

“The queen of monsters.”

There are a few nervous whispers.  You glance around the room, unsure of what everyone is so worried about.  You’ve never met the queen of monsters, but you’ve seen her in the paper with a big smile as she stands proudly in front of the first human-monster integrated school where she teaches.  She doesn’t strike you as the menacing type.

“Nothing new from the Speakers?” Mara urges, and a few magicians shake their heads.  “Readers, then, what have you seen?”

“Fire,” your grandmother mutters from the far corner of the room where she sits with other elders, “I saw fire when I Read the sky.  It was a hungry fire that sought magic, flames tall enough to lick the clouds.  It swallowed us whole and left nothing but ash and bone.”  You try to look nonchalant, or at the very least, innocent, like you have nothing to hide, but your grandmother’s words are making you nervous.  Your dad didn’t tell you a few nights ago about the rest of what she Read, just the vague part about fire.

Unlike the anxious mutterings brought about by mention of the monster queen, the word “ _ fire _ ” makes the room fall silent.  Mara is the first to dare to speak.  “Fire,” she repeats softly, and you swear one of the older magicians actually flinches in their seat.  “This is not a good omen.  We must be more cautious than ever.”

You raise a hand, feeling a bit childish, though you’re afraid to simply speak when the mood in the room has dramatically worsened.  The eldest magician nods at you.  “Um, I don’t understand,” you say sheepishly, “What’s so bad about fire?”

Her gaze softens a bit in sympathy—or maybe pity.  “That’s right, you Read fire,” she mutters, “Perhaps it’s difficult for you to understand the danger, when it’s your very medium.”  She pauses, fixing you with a solemn look.  “Fire is the traditional method employed by those who hated us by virtue of what we are.” 

Her eyes seem to glaze over as she goes on, words nearly rhythmic as though she’s reciting a poem from memory.  “Our hands bound behind our back, we could not Make nor Destroy, and our bound feet would not let us Travel.  The heat clouded our thoughts so we could not Listen, the embers burned our eyes so we could not Read.  The smoke clogged our throats so we could not Speak, and the flames consumed our spell craft and undid our Writing.”

Mara slowly rises to her feet, wrinkled hands resting on the table.  “Fire consumes everything we are.  That is why we fear it.”

You stare wide-eyed, frightened both by the solemnity of her words and the heavy, oppressive weight of raw magic hanging in the air all around you, emanating from the assembled magicians in response to their fear.  Mara takes a deep breath and with a wave of her hands, the magic simply vanishes, blinking out of existence; Destroyed. 

“I don’t mean to frighten you,” she says, tone softer, “But I want you to understand the weight of this warning.  Everyone,” and she turns away from you, addressing the entire room, “is to make a conscious effort to remain far away from fire.  Be cautious and vigilant.  Do not dawdle, do not wander, and do not expose yourselves.”

The meeting ends on a much more somber note than usual.  The magicians filter out of the room with hopelessness in their eyes that lingers even as they pass through the public library and out to the parking lot, seamlessly blending into the mass of ordinary humans all around them.  Your grandmother’s Reading has shaken everybody up, which has made you rethink how careless you were the other night. 

“How’ve you been?” your father asks with a weak smile, attempting to lighten the mood. 

Your parents live just within the city limits in a house surrounded by a dense oak forest, far enough out that it takes them almost half an hour to come back into town if they want to visit you.  In fact, most magicians you know live as far away as possible while still sharing the same zip code, forming a dotted circle around Mt. Ebott, its shadow rotating over them as the sun rises and falls. 

(You remember your mother telling you when you were young that the mountain makes them all uneasy, and you’d said everyone should just move away.

“No,” she’d said, and she didn’t quite meet your eyes, voice trembling, “We can’t.”)

You shrug.  “Fine.  Nothing new.  Still looking for a job.”  You let your gaze wander so you don’t see the looks on their faces when you casually add, “Speaking of, there are a lot of places in the monster district that are hiring.”

“No,” your mother says before you even have the last word all the way out.  You inwardly groan; you don’t know why you even bothered asking. 

“It’s just been hard to find anything elsewhere,” you insist.

“That’s alright, something will turn up eventually.”  You know you’re not going to get anywhere arguing, so you give a defeated nod.  Your mother looks a little guilty.  “Maybe later,” she allows, “When all of this has blown over.”

“And what is  _ this _ , exactly?” you ask, gesturing vaguely around yourself, “I get why fire’s bad, but isn’t everyone overreacting?  It’s not like—!”

“Later,” she cuts you off with a hissed whisper, clutching your shoulder as though she needs to physically restrain you, “We’ll talk about it later.  Your father and I will come visit when we have time.”

“Sure,” you say with a frown.  You’re used to this by now; as the youngest magician in the area, you’ve spent most of your life being shushed or pitied for knowing so little or told “ _ now isn’t the time _ .”  But it never _ is _ time, you’re always left with a thousand questions about these old traditions you don’t understand and no one really wants to explain to you. 

“Keep yourself out of trouble,” your father reminds you as he and your mother walk across the parking lot to their car, and you roll your eyes but tell him you will. 

No wandering around, no staying out late, no using magic where people can see, no leaving the vicinity of Mt. Ebott under any circumstances, no associating with monsters unless it’s absolutely necessary, and now no fire; you thought you’d outgrow all of the rules someday, but it seems like more are getting added on every time you look up.

You can’t help but wonder, as you watch your parents drive away, if Dustin might have just decided to leave without looking back, if he’d had enough of all the rules and the secrets. 

You wonder if you might do the same.

*

You were almost eight before you figured out what your  _ thing _ was, and it was an exciting time for your family since you were a bit of a late bloomer.  You were sitting in the dining room watching your father Read—as a carromancer, candle wax is his thing, and a single, forest green stick sat in a metallic holder on the table, half-melted.  You always liked to watch him Read; you could feel his magic, crackling like electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, and even if you couldn’t see what he saw in the melted max, you saw the way his eyes lit up in excitement or his brows furrowed in worry, and it was endlessly fascinating.

“What’s it like to be able to Read?” you’d asked him one evening.

Your grandmother might’ve scolded you for interrupting her in the middle of a ritual, but your father’s patience was endless, and he smiled, telling you to come and see for yourself.  He was just humoring you a bit, maybe planning on using it as another opportunity to remind you that you’d find your own magic soon, but you eagerly came over to the table and watched him light the candle again.  You squinted, looking for shapes or letters or something, unsure of what you’d find, but you found your eyes drawn to the flickering flame instead.

You saw frightening shapes, writhing shadows with gaping maws and a thousand grasping hands reaching from the light and trying to pull you in, and you knew they were angry somehow, you knew that they wanted your flesh and your blood, they wanted you to pay for something that you hadn’t done, and you reeled back from the table, falling off of your chair and scrambling away until your back hit the wall, head in your hands as you cowered from the things that weren’t there.

Your father had to carry you up to your room because your legs were shaking too much for you to walk.  Even days later, you couldn’t tell him what you’d seen.

You didn’t try to Read for a very long time after that.

*

You take a quick detour on your walk home, wandering dangerously close to the monster district despite knowing your parents would throw a fit if they found out, half out of spite and half out of curiosity.  You poke your head into Gerson’s Antiques because the display of painted turtle figurines on the windowsill catch your attention.  The store is jam-packed with vintage goods from the Underground—an old wooden cabinet holds a set of fine china painted with the royal family’s crest, and there are baby highchairs with three or four leg holes.  You’re examining a strange lampshade that resembles a human silhouette when a monster resembling a giant purple rabbit makes her way over to you, smiling pleasantly.

“Can I help you find something?” she asks.

You shake your head.  “I’m just looking around, thanks.  Oh, but….”  You glance back towards the door and the large display windows at the front of the store.  “Are any of those statues in the window for sale?  My parents love turtle stuff, they have a whole bunch of figurines already but nothing quite like those.”

“You like them?” the shopkeeper asks with a laugh, “Sorry, they’re just decorations as far as I know.  Gerson wanted something eye-catching in the window, and we decided on those since the store was going to be named after him.  It was kind of bare when we opened, but,” she pauses, gesturing around herself, “You can see that’s not exactly an issue anymore.  I’ll ask the next time I see him if he still wants them around.”

You look at the statues from afar with a small smile.  The sight of turtles is somewhat comforting to you, a reminder of your childhood and of the safety of your home—there were turtle magnets on the refrigerator, turtle-print pillowcases, turtle figures on top of the cabinets and two large tortoise statues standing sentinel outside on the front lawn, thanks to your parent’s strange compulsion for collecting them.

“Is he a turtle, then?” you ask, and then frown.  “Wait, no.  I mean, does he look like a turtle?  Is that really offensive to ask?”

The shopkeeper tries to cover her growing smile with one fuzzy hand.  “No, I get what you’re saying.  He is, and an old one at that.  One of the best historians we ever had in the Underground.  Hopefully, he’ll make his way topside soon.”

You tilt your head curiously.  “He hasn’t come out of the Underground yet?”

She shakes her head.  “He’s on the timid side, I’m afraid.  Come back in a few weeks, and maybe I’ll have convinced him to join us up here by then.”

You thank her for her time and promise you’ll be back—if not for the turtles, then maybe for the scented candles you saw behind the register, or the treasure chest-looking box that would make for a cool storage bin.  Despite the sun beginning to set and a cool, evening chill settling over town, it feels surprisingly warm when you step outside, and you understand why when you come face to face with the walking pillar of flame that runs the bar downtown just within arm’s reach behind you.

“Grillby!” you exclaim nervously, the magician’s meeting from earlier rocketing to the front of your mind as well as everyone’s insistence that fire was going to be their downfall, “Hey.  How’s it going?”

He’s wearing a light-colored sweater, hands in his pockets and his head flickering out above the collar, the bright points that you understand to be his eyes dimly glowing behind his glasses.  You Read a subdued hurriedness in his movements; he’s on his way somewhere, probably to open the bar.  Somehow, he seems clearer to you now, easier to Read.  “Fine, thank you,” he says, and you’re startled to hear him speak without any hesitation.  You figure you must have made a good first impression.  “I’m glad I ran into you, actually.  Are you alright?”

You blink, confused.  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You never came back.” 

The answer startles you.  Surely he sees hundreds of customers in a night, and you remember being told that you weren’t the only human who’d wandered down there, but he seems to remember you just fine.  “Oh,” you say, trying to sound as though you’d forgotten, “Yeah, sorry about that.”  You vaguely recall telling him you’d make sure to come by again, and scold yourself for that.  “I’ve been…uh….”

He waits patiently, making the silence as you scramble to come up with a reason even more uncomfortable.

“…taking in the sights,” you finish weakly, “Because I’m…not usually on this side of town.  So I’ve been trying to check out all the bars.”

There’s a shift in the fire in front of you over his eyes, something like the raising of eyebrows.  “There’s another bar down here?” he asks.

You frown.   _ Apparently not. _  “I mean,” you try to recover, “In this area, like, in general.  Not just….”   _ In the monster part of town. _  You don’t know how you can make that sound okay.

Grillby shows some mercy, however.  “It’s alright,” he says gently, “I don’t want you to feel you have to defend yourself.  I just hoped you didn’t stay away because of me.”

You think you flinch, immediately panicking and wondering how he knew, but he has no way of knowing, does he?  “What…what do you mean by that?”

“I thought I scared you.”  He sounds a bit dejected when he says it, and your eyes soften.

“What?  No!  That’s not,” you pause, taking a deep breath, and try to dance around the truth rather than outright lie, “You didn’t scare me, I swear.”

He seems to brighten a bit, and you feel even warmer.  “Ah.  Good.  Then maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”  You see a hopeful smile, and you try to ignore the guilt you feel building up inside as you nod and return it with a smile of your own.

“Yeah,” you say, and give a cheerful wave, one that dies down in enthusiasm the moment he’s out of sight.  You want to go back, you really do, but you don’t think you can; not when every magician in town is warning you about fire and sleeping with one eye open, afraid of some impending disaster that no one wants to explain in detail.  You think again about Dustin, who left town without telling anyone—knowing they’d overreact, tell him he was being immature, that he should respect his elders without question and continue behaving as if the world hasn’t changed in hundreds of years. 

You don’t want to live like this for the rest of your life.

*

You’re home just long enough to kick off your shoes and drape yourself over the couch to sulk when you decide you’re too restless to sit still.  A minute later, you’re texting your friends and hoping against hope that someone is doing something anywhere but the monster district while you wander into the kitchen for a snack.

You’re thinking about the fries at Grillby’s, and you’re not sure why.  They were good but they weren’t by any means the greatest thing you’d ever eaten in your life, yet you feel yourself craving them.  You miss the atmosphere, the lively conversation, the smell of fresh food cooking and the warm light coming from the other side of the counter. 

Suddenly, you’re putting your shoes on despite telling yourself it’s a bad idea.  You’re usually a little better at following the rules, but you’re overcome by something like mania, and you’re not sure if you’re just being defiant or if you’re missing the company.  Your friends are texting you back but you don’t even check what they’re saying, feet carrying you back down the same path you took several nights ago, stopping at the top of the steps and staring up at the old wooden sign with Grillby’s name on it, grooves worn into the wood. 

The restless feeling goes away the moment you’re in the door, surrounded again by a warm and welcoming atmosphere.  Most of the monsters seated around the bar are the same ones from last time, but rather than whisper to one another as you pass or silently glance in your direction when they think you aren’t looking, they smile and wave.  You decide you’re glad you came, and that the other magicians in town just don’t need to know about this; it’s not going to hurt anybody.

There are fewer available seats at the bar this time, but you manage to find an open stool on the end.  Sans is there once again, grin somehow widening when he sees you approach.  “Hey, kiddo, long time no see,” he tells you.

You shrug.  “It hasn’t been that long.”

“Long enough.”

Grillby spots you from the other end of the bar and you see a smile spread across his face, but he’s pulled away by a table of dogs barking that they’re ready to order.  You glance around the bar and see monsters leaning against the walls with drinks in hand, the tables already filled.  Grillby has to make another sweep around the restaurant before returning to get your order. You catch yourself staring, drawn into the bright red in his flames, but your attempts to Read what they mean are thwarted by the sudden onset of a slight headache.  “Sorry for the wait,” he says.

“It’s alright,” you assure him, “It’s really busy today.  Are you the only staff here?”

He nods.  Sans chimes in, “Proprietor, chef, and bartender, he does it all.”

“How do you manage?  It wasn’t this bad a few days ago, but I guess it must get like this from time to time.”

Sans leans a little closer.  “Why?” he asks, and it sounds like he’s teasing you, “Looking for work?”

“Sans,” Grillby says in warning.

The skeleton shrugs sheepishly.  “It was just a suggestion.  You really could use some help around here.”

“Then how about  _ you _ get back here and pay off your tab?”

Sans’ lazy grin widens and he leans over the bar on one elbow.  “Nah, I’ll pass.”  He glances at you, cupping one hand beside his mouth as though trying to whisper, but he speaks at the same volume.  “It’s a pride thing.  Grillbz doesn’t like having help.”

“It is  _ not _ a pride thing,” Grillby insists, “I just prefer it this way.”  Sans’ eyes roll in the socket.

“Do you know if anyone else is hiring?” you ask, “I really am trying to get a job right now.”

“Around here?” Grillby asks, and you nod.  “Just about everyone.  Papyrus severely underestimated how many chefs he’d need to run a spaghetti-hibachi grill-buffet combination restaurant.”  You assume that’s the SPAGHETTI place you’ve heard so much about.  “Bonnie’s having a difficult time running the antique store alone, and the actual owner hasn’t pitched in to help yet.  The human-monster school needs teaching assistants, too.”

You’ve heard about the school because it’s been all over the news; it’s the first of its kind, a primary education facility that welcomes both human and monster children.  Its founder, the monster queen, always appears on commercials and in magazine ads with a warm smile, urging people to consider a future where monsters and humankind will be united rather than divided. 

Of all of your options, it’s the one that you think your parents would have the hardest time arguing against.

“They need teaching assistants?” you ask.

“Oh, that’s right,” Sans drawls, “The new term’s already started.  I bet they’ll need some more supplies for the classrooms; notebooks and scissors and stuff.  Not rulers, though.”

“Why not?” you ask.

Sans waits a beat.  “Because the queen teaches there already.”

You and Grillby both stare at Sans silently and he just grins back, and even though you try not to give him a reaction, you have to turn away to cover up a chuckle as a cough. 

“That was terrible,” Grillby says.

“You always say that,” Sans retorts, “No sense of humor.”

“Puns are the lowest form of humor.”

Sans feigns a scandalized expression.  “Whoa now.  Maybe you don’t need my patronage after all.”

Grillby flickers a bit as he crosses his arms over his chest.  “It can’t be considered patronage if you never pay for anything.”  Sans looks like he has a retort ready, but Grillby holds up a hand to stop him and disappears into the kitchen.

“You two seem close,” you tell him.

Sans chuckles.  “Yeah, he’s a good friend.”  He lowers his voice, the lights in his eyes sockets narrowing into little slits as he leers at you.  “Can’t help but notice you stare at him an awful lot.  Thought it was because he was a monster at first, but you don’t do it to anyone else.”

Your eyes widen and you feel heat rising to your face in embarrassment.  You’ve been trying to balance holding eye contact with Grillby with being discreet about your attempted Reading, but you tend to just get lost in thought looking at him.  By the tone of Sans’ voice, it seems he’s taken this the wrong way.  “It’s not what you think,” you try to explain, but he waves you off.

“Hey, I’m not gonna judge you,” he says, “He’s been staring back, in case you haven’t noticed.”

_ That _ surprises you.  “He has?”

Sans’ grin widens.  “Be gentle, alright?” he says, “Grillbz’s been through a lot.  Takes a lot for him to open up, but he’s already pretty fond of you.”

“Wait, I never said….”  The kitchen door swings open and Grillby returns with a plate of fries, and you smile appreciatively.  “Thanks, I seriously had a craving for these earlier.”

He seems surprised to hear this.  “Really?”

“Yeah.”  You laugh a little shyly and pick up a fry to nibble on.  “Next time, I’ll try the burger, but I just needed some comfort food tonight.”

A heat haze appears around Grillby’s head and his cheeks darken; he’s flustered, you can tell, but with just a little peek with of Reading, you see that he’s also flattered.  “I’m glad you like it,” he says, voice quieter than usual. 

You don’t know why, but you can feel yourself blushing a little.

Sans makes a sound in the back of his throat that’s a mix between a cough and a poorly disguised, “getaroom,” and you both shoot him a glare before Grillby is called away again by another patron.  “He is really nice,” you murmur, and Sans snickers beside you.

It occurs to you that pursuing someone whose body consists of magical fire might not be a good idea when you’re supposed to be avoiding fire, but you’ve always been a little bit of a rebel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to my awesome beta reader for helping me out!

You were both just children when Dustin first said, “You ever think of running away?”

It was a sweltering summer day and you both sat on his back porch, watching a line of ants crawl out of the ground in front of you.  He was just a bit older, but the difference was great enough that you couldn’t understand where he was coming from at all.  The thought of leaving the safety of your parents and the other magicians behind was terrifying to you.  

“Why?” you asked him, and he’d shrugged.

“I dunno.  Don’t you get tired of the way they treat us?”  He’d shielded his eyes from the light of the midday sun and looked off into the distance, where Mt. Ebott jutted out of the earth.  “All my friends got to go to summer camp,” he said, “But Dad said I couldn’t go because it’s too far from the mountain.  Why aren’t we allowed to go wherever we want?”

“Because it’s dangerous out there,” you said matter-of-factly, just as your parents had told you.

Dustin shook his head.  “Everyone else can leave, though, and they’re not even magicians.”

“Well….”  You paused, frowning as you tried to think of another reason.  “Maybe there’s something outside our town that’s only dangerous to magicians?”

“Do you really believe that?” Dustin asked sharply.  You must’ve looked upset, because he quickly backtracked after glancing at you and amended, “It doesn’t matter.  I bet, once we’re older, we’ll get to do more.”

“Yeah,” you nodded enthusiastically.  You’d been told the same thing before, after all; _when you’re older, we’ll tell you,_ and _you’ll understand when you’re older._  You were sure that everything would make more sense then.  You were sure Dustin would get to go to summer camp and you’d get to stay out late and everything would be more fun.  All you had to do was wait, so you waited.

And waited.

And waited a little more.

And at some point, you realized things might not be so simple.

*

“I told you no.”

You frown, determined not to back down.  Your attention is torn between the phone balanced against your shoulder and your laptop on the living room table.  Dustin hasn’t called, messaged, or checked in on Facebook in a long time, and you’re starting to get worried.  You want to know how he’s doing.

_You want to know if you should start thinking about leaving, too._

“It’s barely even _in_ the monster district,” you insist, “It’s not very far from my apartment, either, so I could walk to work and wouldn’t even need bus fare.  Besides, half the staff is human.”

“And the other half are monsters,” your mother says sharply on the other end of the line.  “Isn’t there an all-human school that needs help?”

“What’s the problem with monsters, anyway?” you shoot back, “I expect people like Mara to be a little weird about them, but I didn’t think my own family would be racist.”

“We are _not_ racist.”

You roll your eyes.

“You know that monsters and humans were at war.”

“That was hundreds of years ago.  They seem totally fine with us now,” you say.

Your mother gives out a long-suffering sigh; this is a conversation you’ve had countless times since monsters first emerged from the Underground.  “They don’t know that there are any magicians still alive,” she tells you, “Humanity fought the war, but it was the magicians—our ancestors—who ultimately sealed them underground.”

“Exactly, it was our ancestors,” you argue.  “It’s one thing when people are being assholes today, but it’s not like we have to be afraid of them just because we think they’re going to hold a grudge.  We just have to not be assholes now.”

Your mother is silent for a while, and you wonder if she hung up out of frustration.  “Some things,” she says quietly, “are very difficult to forgive.”  Before you can ask what she means, she continues, “I guess there are worse places to work than the school.  Just be careful.  You know the rules.”

“No late nights, no leaving town, no magic; I know the drill.”

“And no fire,” she reminds you.  More gently, she asks, “Have you heard anything from Dustin lately?”

You glance back at your browser; you have your email open in one tab and your Facebook open in the other, but no news from him on either.  “No.  I’ve been checking.  Have you heard anything?”

“His father told me they went to check on him after he missed the first meeting.” she says.  “Apparently he was acting kind of strange.  He said he’d definitely make the next meeting, but then he skipped out on that one, too, and the one just the other day.  I heard he wasn’t home this last time, and he hasn’t returned any calls.”

You hesitate to say anything, afraid to rat him out, but you think he must be long gone by now.  Besides, you doubt anyone actually has the guts to go after him.  “You think he ran away?”

“Ran away?” your mother repeats incredulously, “Why?”

“Maybe he….”

_Was tired of all the secrets?  Of all of these stupid rules?  Of everyone tiptoeing around and hiding despite the rest of the world moving on?_

You don’t finish the sentence, shutting your laptop and taking hold of the phone with one hand as you stand up from the couch.

“It’s safe here,” your mother says, more to herself than to you.  “As long as we stay together and follow the rules, we’ll all be safe.”

“Safe from what?” you can’t help but ask, “Or am I not allowed to know until I’m older?”

“It’s complicated, honey.”

“You think maybe this is why Dustin left?  Because he was tired of everyone treating him like he was four for his entire life?”  The words slip out before you can stop them.  Your mother doesn’t answer for a long time, dead air hanging between the two of you.  You feel a little guilty, but you don’t trust yourself not to say something else to make it worse and mutter, “Gotta go, I’ll call you later,” and hang up.

You hurriedly put your shoes on, eager to get out of the house.  You need to clear your head.

*

United Primary School doesn’t look remotely school-like from the outside.

When Queen Toriel first proposed the project, she was met with heavy opposition from political action committees, like the Humans First group that lobbied constantly to restrict monster business and home ownership.  In the end, she was given an old recreation center, though the end result—a beautiful two-story building with state-of-the-art electronic electronic whiteboards, nearly a block of green space and a pool—makes it seem like she got the last laugh.

You expect to meet someone who works in the office, so you’re a little surprised when the queen herself is waiting in the conference room at a table that seems far too small for actual conferences.  The room smells sweet, like someone’s been baking cookies.

“Hi,” you say awkwardly, “um.  Your Majesty.”

“Please,” she says, voice much softer than you expected, “just Toriel is fine.  Or Ms. Toriel, if you’d prefer.”

“Ms. Toriel?” you repeat, testing the waters, and she beams.

“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the open chair across from her.  She has a teacup in her hand and she takes a delicate sip before placing it gently on the table.  She’s much more approachable than you thought she’d be.  “I’m so glad you’re interested in working here,” she tells you with a large, genuine smile.  “Grillby has told me all about his human visitors, and I’ve so hoped that one of them might end up coming this way.”

You look up at her in shock.  “You want more humans here?”

“Of course.”  She pulls a three-ring binder from the shelf and pushes it across the table.  You open it up and find it’s a photo album of school activities from the previous year.  One of the pictures is of a pair of students, a small girl missing a tooth crouching beside a boy made of blue goo, and they’re both holding up butterfly nets.  

“It’s so easy for them to get along at that age,” the queen says softly.  “They notice that they look different, of course, and we tell them that there’s nothing wrong with being different.  But those differences don’t drive them apart the way it does adults.”  She smiles sadly as you turn the page, glancing over a group of children planting seeds in a field somewhere.  

“I hope they remember the time they spend here,” she says, “And that they hold onto the fond memories of their peers and their teachers.  I hope that, when they grow up, they’ll make a world where this school isn’t the only one like it.”

Your gaze softens and you set the photo album down, meeting her gentle eyes.  You don’t understand what your parents are so afraid of.  “I hope that happens, too,” you say. “I guess I thought most of the humans who came to Grillby’s were just trying to start trouble.”

The queen—who you really do your best to think of as just Toriel—frowns a bit.  “Well, there have been a few in recent memory,” she says, “but there have been even more kind ones.  Before you, there was a nice young man who said he wouldn’t mind working here, though we fell out of touch.”  For some reason, your mind instantly goes back to Dustin, though you tell yourself to let the thought go.  “How soon would you be able to start?” Toriel asks suddenly, and you’re taken aback by the question.  She hasn’t asked you about your skill set or how you work in a team, and there’s no way she’s done a background check on you yet.

“Uh,” you stumble over your own surprise to answer, “right away, I guess.”

She claps her hands excitedly, “Excellent!  Would you be interested in shadowing me today, just to get the hang of things?”

You stare at her.  

“What about the interview?” you ask, bewildered.

She giggles, a surprisingly cute sound for someone who towers over you.  “Interview?” she repeats. “What do I need to interview you for?  You’re already hired.”  She takes another sip of tea, which gives you the necessary time to recover from the shock.  You wonder if this is how things are done in the Underground, or if this is just how she is.

“Are you sure?”  You feel silly for asking, but you can’t help it.

“Of course I’m sure,” she says, standing from her chair.  You decide to just nod and follow her, since it seems she’s made up her mind.  You don’t intend to argue with the queen.

*

Toriel’s class is one of the large ones at United, twenty-five students at long tables, name tags decorated with crayon-drawn images of houses and stick figures taped down to separate each student’s workspace.  The whole class greets her enthusiastically, and you feel a little self-conscious standing at the front as she introduces you, but they give you a warm welcome and you manage a smile.  You help pass out papers and sometimes get called over to help with math problems, but you spend most of your time just observing, watching Toriel direct the class to a certain page in their history books.  One human child scrambles to find a pencil in their bag and the monster beside them taps them on the shoulder to offer one, earning an appreciative smile and whispered, “Thanks!” that warms your heart.

“Now,” Toriel begins when the class has quieted down, “last time, we started talking about the War of Humans and Monsters.”  She starts a slideshow on the board, and the first image that comes up looks like an old painting of a monster holding a trident and a human wielding a sword positioned across from each other on a battlefield, armies behind them.  “Does anyone remember how the war ended?”

A few hands go up.  She calls on the first one, a human child in the middle of the room.  “The monsters said they didn’t want to fight anymore,” he says, “and then the magicians put the monsters underground”

“That’s right,” Toriel says, but before she can continue, another hand rises,  this time a flipper-like appendage from a seal-looking child.

“But why?” she asks with a frown.  “The monsters already said they didn’t wanna fight, so the humans should’ve stopped.  Why’d they lock us up like that?”

Toriel nods.  “That’s a very good question.  Why do you think they did it?”

The seal monster pouts.  “Because the magicians were stupid and mean.”

You sink further back in your seat, suddenly uncomfortable.  You’ve suffered worse than being called “stupid and mean” by someone who can’t be older than ten, but the whole class has joined in now, jeering and mocking people they believe to be long gone.

One of whom sits at the front of the room.

“Now isn’t that a cruel thing to say?” Toriel asks, frowning. “Calling the magicians names isn’t very nice.”

“But don’t you hate them, too?” one of the human children asks. “It’s their fault that the monsters had to stay underground for so long.”

Toriel shakes her head.  “I don’t hate them,” she says, “I don’t think it’s fair for us to hate them.  Don’t you remember what we talked about right when school started?”

There’s silence for a while before a long hand timidly rises and a girl sitting in the back mumbles, “Humans were mean to magicians, even though they’re the same.”

Toriel smiles.  “Remember,” she says sternly, “sometimes people are mean because they’re afraid.  When they don’t understand something new, they might begin to fear it, and fear can make people do horrible things.”  

The students seem a bit sobered by the change in atmosphere, no longer as excitable as before.  “We shouldn’t forget the bad things that have happened,” she tells them, looking around the room, “Because we must never allow them to happen again.  And sometimes, we need to find where we are similar rather than different and pay close attention to that.  If there were any magicians left today, I would want to be their friend so they knew they didn’t have to be afraid of me.”

The room is quiet for a moment.  The seal monster says thoughtfully, “I guess I’d want them to be my friend, too.”

“I want a magician friend!” one of the human boys exclaims, “We could do magic tricks together!”

The tone in the room suddenly shifts back to the lively one from before.  Toriel has a bit of trouble reigning the students in to move on with the lesson, but eventually she manages to get them to quiet back down.  You settle into the chair behind Toriel’s desk comfortably, feeling less like you need to hide behind it now, a smile growing on your face.

You’d like to see Toriel’s dreams of a peaceful, unified future come true, too.

*

“That was a really passionate discussion you had in history class,” you tell her at the end of the day. “Do they always get like that?”

“Sometimes,” she laughs, walking with you back to the staff lounge, “I’ve found the war to be a good way to open up discussion about current issues.  They want to know why the monsters did this, or why the humans did that.  Then they go home and watch TV or talk to their parents, and they don’t just accept things for the way they are, they ask themselves, ‘why?’”  Her smile lessens a bit.  “I wish it had never happened, of course.  But it must be addressed so they learn from the mistakes of their elders.”

You nod in agreement.  “I hardly remember learning about magicians when I studied the war as a kid,” you tell her. “There was a really brief mention about the barrier, but that’s about it.  I was surprised they felt so strongly about the whole thing, but you’re right, it’s good that they think about it.”

“Magicians in particular are an interesting topic,” she says. “We use them as an example in other classes, too, to get the children to begin thinking about how to solve conflicts.  When should you stand your ground, and when is it not worth the conflict?  When should you forgive?  These are things that, even as adults, we seldom give much thought.”

You swallow nervously. “I can’t imagine,” you admit, “growing up being told that magicians were the ones who made things the way they are, and then being asked to think about it from their perspective.  Your monster students are strong for being able to do that.”

Her smile seems a bit tired now.  “We’ve all struggled to forgive them at one time or another,” she says absently. “I just hope they will do better than I can.”

You decide to drop the subject.

A human child runs up to you both, stopping in front of Toriel and making gestures that you recognize as sign language.  She laughs and begins to ruffle their hair.  “Yes, I know I promised,” she says, “But you’ll have to wait.”

The child—a bit older than the ones in the class you were just in—has brown hair down to their shoulders, and they look at your curiously from behind their bangs.  You think they look familiar somehow.  “This is my child, Frisk,” Toriel explains, and the name makes it click; Frisk is the ambassador who stood with the monsters when they first marched out of the darkness and onto the surface.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you say.  Frisk smiles and shakes your hand.

“I promised we’d watch a cartoon movie marathon tonight,” Toriel whispers, and you laugh.

“Well, don’t let me hold you up.  I think I know what’s expected of me.”

Toriel smiles.  “See you tomorrow, then?”

“Of course.”

*

Having a job puts a spring in your step, and you decide you need to celebrate.  You leave United Primary School and head further into the monster district, making a beeline for Grillby’s.  The bar’s on the quieter side tonight, not nearly as crowded as your previous visit, and you take what you think must be your spot now at the bar beside Sans.

“Welcome back,” he says.  This time, he actually has a real drink in front of him, but the glass is full and the ice is half-melted already.  “You look like you’re in a good mood.”

“I am,” you tell him cheerfully.

Grillby makes his way over to you, polishing a drying wine glass.  “The usual?” he asks.

You shake your head.  “I told you I was gonna try the burger one of these days,” you say, “and today’s the day.  I want to treat myself, since I landed a job.”

He smiles.  “Congratulations.”

“Toriel give you the tour today?” Sans asks.

“Kind of.  I got there just before the school day was starting, so I spent most of it in her classroom.”  You rest your elbows on the bar.  “I didn’t realize she was a teacher, too.  I feel bad for taking up so much of her time.”

“Don’t,” Sans waves off your concern. “You didn’t know.  She’s the principal, too, you know.”

You frown, glancing at Grillby.  “So it’s not just you,” you say, “Are all monsters workaholics?”

Sans grins.  “We sure are.  You know, I work twenty jobs.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Grillby cuts in. “It’s all part-time gigs in the underground, and he sleeps during every shift.”

“It’s a living.”

“It’s not all of us, either,” the bartender goes on. “For the queen, I think she’s torn between wanting to make sure things are running smoothly and actually being able to interact with her students, so she has to do it all herself.”

You nod.  “What about you?”

He seems to avert his gaze.  “I prefer to work alone.”

You’d like to know what that’s supposed to mean, but his soft, regretful tone makes you hesitant to pry.  Grillby walks away when a monster on the other end of the bar calls for a refill, leaving you to ponder his words.

“So how was your first day?” Sans asks.

“Oh, it was fine,” you tell him. “I don’t officially get on the payroll for another week, but I’ll be helping out for the next few days.  It’s nice; I really think she’s making a difference.”

“Good,” he says. “Glad to hear it.  Don’t want to make it sound like you owe me or something, but I did vouch for you so you’d get the job.  You seem like a nice kid.”

“Thank you,” you say, startled. “I didn’t know you’d done that.”

He shrugs.  “No problem.  It’s more for her than for you, honestly.  Tori’s soft-hearted.  When the last kid I tried to get into United bailed on me, she took it personally.  Thought he got scared and ran off.  That was a few weeks ago, and I’ve been keeping an eye open for someone else ever since.”

Your smile falls just a bit as you remember the conversation you had with her earlier.  “She mentioned that, actually.  Was he a regular here?”

“Yeah.  Seemed nice enough.  I was real surprised he’d just skip town like that.”

You can’t help the next words that tumble out of your mouth.  “Was his name Dustin?”

Sans glances at you with one dimly glowing eye.  “Maybe,” he says, voice suddenly lower, “why?”

“I just,” you try to come up with an excuse quickly, “heard about something like that.  I mean, that a kid named Dustin went missing.  He was about my age, so it freaked my parents out.  They talk about it a lot.”  That sounds convincing enough to your own ears, but Sans is looking at you with the lights that serve as his eyes becoming small, unnerving pin pricks deep in his skull.  Something about this expression is a little unnerving.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks. “I don’t remember his name or anything, just that it was a shame.”

You’re grateful when Grillby comes by with your food, interrupting the conversation.  You muster an appreciative smile and try to keep your attention on him, but you can feel Sans’ gaze burning a hole into your side.

“On the house,” Grillby says with a smile, “since you’re celebrating and all.”

You laugh shaking your head.  “I think I’ve only paid for one meal here.  I don’t want to run up a tab.”

“It’s fine if I say it’s free,” Grillby says, looking pointedly at Sans. “It’s not fine if you disappear before I give you the bill.”

Sans chuckles.  “Hey, you’ll be coming around a lot now, right?” he asks, jabbing you in the side with his bony elbow. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities to pay.”

His tone doesn’t sound any different than normal, but he’s still giving you that look, and something about his words seems a touch ominous.

*

Somehow, you end up staying late again.

You try to leave a few times, but every time you decide to go, something stops you.  When your plate is empty and the food’s no longer an excuse, you get caught up in a conversation with one of the dogs who wanders by, a bone sticking out of the side of his mouth spitting smoke like a cigar.  He invites you over to play poker with the other dogs, so you go a few rounds—and lose, miserably.  Someone’s cheating, and you’re not sure who, but you suspect it’s the one in the suit of armor who has a dopey-looking but surprisingly effective poker face—and time flies.  The next thing you know, the dogs are calling it a night and filtering out of the empty restaurant, leaving just you at the table and Grillby wiping down the counter wish a washrag.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, nearly tripping over your chair in your hurry to get up. “I wasn’t watching the time.”

“That’s alright,” Grillby says, “I wasn’t going to rush you; you looked like you were having fun.”

“Yeah, but you have to close up.”

He glances at the glass window in the bar door, watching the lights of passing cars on the street shine through.  “It’s pretty late,” he notes. “Would you mind if I walked you home?”

You’re surprised by the offer, but not unpleasantly so.  “If you want to.”

“Thank you,” he says, sounding relieved, and he comes around the bar to do a quick sweep of the restaurant before walking out the door behind you and locking it behind him.  “This is hardly the worst part of town,” he muses. “This is more for my benefit than yours, I suppose.”

You’ve spent your whole life in the town at the base of Mt. Ebott and never really felt unsafe, but you have to admit that it’s nice to walk with him.  You can feel just a little bit of heat as you walk within arm’s reach of him, and he gives off a low, comforting light.  

“It’s nice to have some company,” you say.

Grillby smiles at you, and without meaning to, you start to Read him again.  The flickering around his outline seems smoother—more relaxed, you’d think at a glance—but you see something like regret there when you look carefully.  Deep within him, there are sparks colliding and igniting; frantic and restless.  You see a landscape within an inferno, lakes of fire and stormy skies, a rain of flames, and he stands there at the very center of it with a frightening smile, a mountain of bones and ash behind him—

“Are you alright?” Grillby asks, not walking anymore.  He’s looking at you with concern, and you panic when you realize you don’t even know how long you’ve been Reading.

“Ah.  Sorry,” you stammer.

“You look at me a lot.”

“I’m not...I swear, I don’t mean to—!”

“It doesn’t bother me.”  He says the words so quietly that you think you misheard him at first, but then you see him becoming dimmer as though feeling shy, the flames that make up his face taking on a red hue.  You nervously meet his eyes.

“Really?”

He nods.

“I don’t mean to stare,” you insist. “You’re just...really….”  You have half a mind to say _“hot,”_ the sort of joke that only Sans would appreciate, but you decide to be serious.  “You always catch my eye.  I’m just drawn to you.”

It occurs to you that what you’ve said sounds an awful lot like a confession of some sort, and you struggle to think of something to add because you’re a little embarrassed, yet not completely sure you want to take the words back.  Grillby is endlessly fascinating and kind and really seems to care about you; it wouldn’t hurt to get to know him.

Just as the enduring silence makes you start fearing rejection, he smiles and says, “Good, then it’s not just me.”  He offers a hand, lighting up the air between you like a sparkler.  You accept it a bit hesitantly, surprised to find he doesn’t burn at all.  The texture of his hand alternates between something solid like flesh and something gently flowing like hot wax, moving over your hand and warming your skin.  “Would you object,” he asks, “if I were to invite you on an outing sometime?”

“No,” you say quickly, “no objections here,” which makes him laugh.

You exchange numbers at some point and have an awkward parting at your door, where you try to decide if you should give him a hug or not.  Grillby seems to notice how conflicted you feel and embraces you, and the feeling is vaguely reminiscent of being wrapped in a heated blanket.  You relax against his chest and are far more disappointed than you want to admit when he lets go.  You wave, waiting until he’s out of sight to go inside, heart still fluttering, a stupid contented smile on  your face.  Gradually, the reality of the situation sinks in and you begin thinking of the likely obstacles—such as how you’re going to tell your parents you’re going to pursue a relationship with a fire monster, the easiest answer simply being that you won’t—and your mood begins to sour.  You check your phone as you start getting ready for bed and, to your surprise, find you have half a dozen missed calls from home despite not hearing your phone ring at all at the restaurant.  You quickly call back.

“Are you alright?” your father asks the second he picks up, “Where are you?  What’s going on, are you hurt?”

“What?  I’m fine,” you say, confused. “Sorry I missed your calls, my phone must’ve been on silent.”

“Don’t _ever_ do that again,” he says sternly. “We’re already halfway to your house, and you’re coming back with us for the night.”

You expect this kind of thing from your mother, but your father has always been the milder of the two when it comes to the whole “secret magicians living secret but boring lives” thing, which can only mean that something’s really wrong.

“Did something happen?” you ask, but you already have a sinking feeling.

He doesn’t beat around the bush.  “They found Dustin’s body,” he says solemnly. “He was burned to death.”


	4. Chapter 4

Your parents live in an old brick house with a view of Mt. Ebott from the back porch. The winding driveway off of the dirt road leading up to the garage is half-hidden by overgrown foliage, easily missed by anyone who doesn’t know what to look for. You loved growing up here in the woods, living next door to Dustin and close to a few other magician families, spending the summers catching bugs and wading through shallow streams in pursuit of bullfrogs.

The lights are off at Dustin’s parents’ house. You wonder how they’re doing.

Your own house looks just as goofy as usual, two green statues of tortoises the size of small children on either side of the front door. You file in silently with your parents—who haven’t even scolded you since leaving your place, probably because they feel no need to, considering what’s happened—and find your extended family gathered in the living room.

“The police are still looking into it,” your uncle says, seated in a striped armchair. He’s a geologist by trade and an oryctomancer by birth, utilizing his expansive collection of stones and crystallized minerals to Read about the goings on in town. “I haven’t spoken to Dustin’s folks yet, but I doubt they’ll be in any shape to talk about this for a little while.”

Your mother shakes her head. “I don’t understand,” she says hoarsely. “We’ve all been so careful. How could this happen?”

You lean against the wall by the window, watching your aunt who stands nearby, arms crossed over her chest and gaze on the dark woods outside as though she expects something to be out there. “Who do you think did it?” you ask softly.

“A monster,” your grandmother says from her seat on the couch, a frown etched into her face. “It must have been.”

Your mother takes a shuddering breath and your father drapes an arm over her shoulder, shaking his head.

“Whoever did this thought it through,” your uncle says. “They took the body and hid it out here in the woods.”

Your brows furrow in confusion. “That seems really stupid to me. If monsters killed him, why would they stick him out here, and so close to where people live? Even if none of us ever found him, lots of people walk the trails every day. It was only a matter of time before someone found the body.”

Your uncle takes a deep breath. “As far as I can figure,” he says, “it’s because they knew what Dustin was, and what we are, and they wanted to send a message.”

No one speaks for a while. You feel frightened and angry tears welling up, threatening to spill over. You don’t understand. Why Dustin? What did he ever do to anyone? He was like an older brother to you, always helping you down when you climbed oak trees too high or glaring at the kids who made fun of you for being a Reader. He was always smiling, always telling you to cheer up and have fun, the only magician even close to your age who understood how you felt when no one else did. Why would someone want to hurt him? Why fire, of all things?

Mara’s words from the meeting return to haunt you.

_ “Fire is the traditional method employed by those who hated us by virtue of what we are.” _

“We all know the rules,” your grandmother says. “Don’t dawdle, don’t wander, don’t expose yourself. We’ll make it through this.”

“No fire,” your mother mutters, and the rest of your family lets out murmurs of agreement.

For some reason, Grillby comes to mind. Even though you try to rid yourself of the thought, you wonder if that date might not be the best idea right now.

*

Your next few visits to Grillby’s are brief and awkward. You should really just stop going, but something—maybe your attraction to him, or maybe your guilt at even entertaining the notion that he might be responsible for Dustin’s death—keeps you from staying at home. You hang around just long enough to make some small talk, order something to go and apologize for not having much time. The crestfallen expression on his face when you rush out the door makes you guilty, but you can’t stay. Even though you’ve never paid them much mind, the rules have been there for a reason, and they’re more important now than ever. 

Grillby tries, more than a few times, to invite you on a walk around the park or to let him show you around his favorite places in town, and you quickly excuse yourself before he gets the chance to pitch an invitation. You feel bad when it obviously dampens his spirits, but you think now might not be the time.

As if that isn’t enough to worry about, Dustin’s death is all over the news and people are starting to talk.

You wait around for Toriel at the end of the school day, reading the paper in the staff lounge, but you overhear a few of the human office secretaries congregating around the coffee machine in the corner. An arson investigation has been opened up alongside the murder case since some property at the edge of town was found to hold partially-melted furniture, blackened carpet and ashy residue on the ceilings, but it looked totally untouched from the outside. 

“Did you see the news last night?” one of them says. “I just don’t know what to think. We’re trying to teach these kids to be accepting of monsters, and then things like this happen.”

“You don’t really think it was him, do you?” another asks. “I’ve been to that bar. He’s quiet, sure, but he doesn’t seem the type to do something like this.”

“We’ll see, I guess. It’s only a matter of time before something turns up.”

You don’t need to ask to know who they’re talking about, slowly lowering the paper onto the table as you decide you need to take a break elsewhere. But your day clearly isn’t bad enough yet; you hear someone come running down the hall and then Frisk is ducking past the secretaries and tugging on your sleeve, signing frantically and pointing back the way they came.

“Whoa, whoa, Frisk, calm down,” you say, hunching slightly to put your hands on their shoulders. “Slow down, what’s wrong?”

They gesture for you to follow and lead you to the front doors of United Primary School, and your eyes widen when you see a crowd gathered on the front lawn. They’re carrying picket signs and cardboard posters in their hands bearing phrases like, “NO MONSTERS IN OUR SCHOOLS” and “KEEP OUR CHILDREN SEPARATE.” Human and monster children are using their backpacks to shield their heads from pebbles being hurled at the building, some holding hands and trying to edge around them, others paralyzed with fear and cowering by the school doors.

There are a few staff members outside, Toriel among them, but they’re overwhelmed by the wall of people shouting at them. You rush outside, calling out to Toriel, and she looks relieved to see you.

“What is all this?” you ask her.

She closes her eyes and sighs deeply.

“A protest,” she says. “You must’ve heard by now that Grillby has been implicated in the murder investigation. The Humans First group has been rallying about it for a few days, but I didn’t think they’d come here.”

“Go back underground!” one of the protesters yells. “Stop indoctrinating our children with your pro-monster propaganda!”

“If you want to protest, please move back a bit,” Toriel pleads, trying to speak above the cacophony of angered voices. “Let the students go home, at least.”

Angry parents are emerging from the line of minivans in the parking lot, some of whom confront the protesters by screaming back. The whole thing is a few seconds away from becoming a huge brawl.

You notice Frisk is still holding onto your shirt, peering out from behind you. “You’d better go back inside,” you urge. “It’s alright, we’ll figure this out—!”

You hear something fly through the air, and Toriel cries out as a rock hits her in the side of the head. You stare out at the crowd and see a girl in front of the mob—a redhead with freckles, probably not even out of high school yet—crouching to pick up more, right next to the man who was shouting earlier. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” you yell, and she freezes when she sees you looking at her. You make your way over to her, uncaring of the jeers you hear all around of “monster sympathizer.”

The girl looks terrified and drops the rock in her hands, but the man beside her steps in front of her. “Don’t talk to my daughter like that,” he says, glaring you down.

“Then tell your daughter to stop throwing things,” you shoot back.

“Why’re you siding with the monsters, huh?” someone yells, shoving you from behind, and you catch yourself after a brief stumble. “What’ve you got against your own kind?” 

“Why are you people doing this?” cries a blue monster with a clamshell open around his head, holding onto his trembling son. “Just let us take our kids home.”

“Then go home!” the crowd screams, a few people surrounding them. “Don’t come back!”

“That’s  _ enough _ .”

There’s almost total silence after Toriel’s words fade into an echo. You’ve never even heard her raise her voice before, and the animalistic growl that leaves her throat renders you speechless. You see her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, putting a gentle hand on your shoulder as she steps past you. She has her cellphone in one hand and raises it up over the crowd. “That’s enough,” she says again in the soft tone you’re used to. “I’ve called the police. You may protest, but you may not obstruct the door or parking lot. If you won’t let the children go home, you will be arrested.”

A few people don’t seem convinced, continuing to shout at her, but some of the crowd shifts off of the grass and lets parents and children pass. The man from earlier glares hatefully at you, refusing to budge, but his daughter just looks embarrassed.

“You handled that pretty well,” you tell Toriel, but she shakes her head. She looks like she’s about to cry.

“No,” she says. “Fear won today. I was afraid for the safety of the children, and I acted rashly.”

You shake your head. “Calling the police wasn’t rash. What else were you supposed to do?”

Toriel glances down at her hands, and you notice now with the worst of the chaos behind you that they’re glowing faintly with magic. “I almost did something much worse.” She shakes off your concerned gaze, glancing at her own child. “Would you make sure Frisk gets home safely?” she asks. “Please.”

Frisk clearly doesn’t want to leave her. Toriel crouches down and wraps her arms around them, whispering something, and they look up at her tearfully but nod. Frisk takes your hand and starts to walk, and you have no choice but to follow.

Despite your pleas, Toriel refuses to go back inside. She’s determined to stand on the front lawn of the school she fought so hard to get, taking all of the hateful words slung at her without so much as flinching as she stares beyond the protesters and into the distance; perhaps at a memory.

You look back over your shoulder, at the people hissing and spitting at her and the sadness that fills her eyes, and you desperately wish that things could be different.

*

Grillby doesn’t even ask when he pours you a tall glass of something that’s a mix of cloudy orange and bright red with a lemon wedge hooked into the side and a cherry on top. You glance up at him and straighten up from where you’re slouched at the bar. “What’s this?” you ask.

He rests his forearms on the bar and leans in, speaking softly. “Your shoulders are tense. You’ve been looking at the floor since you came in. You’ve hardly said a word.” His eyes flicker in worry. “I’m not jumping to conclusions by thinking something must be wrong, am I?”

You’re touched by his concern, taking a sip and savoring the taste. You feel a little insecure that he can effortlessly read your body language while you struggle to so much as Read how he’s feeling. “Thanks, this is really good.”

He doesn’t move. “Would you like to talk about it?”

You shrug.

You feel something warming your cheek and look up again, finding Grillby reaching across the table, the glow of his eyes dim and gentle. “No pressure,” he assures you. “It just breaks my heart to see you looking so upset. Let me get you some food, at least.”

Sans is being surprisingly quiet today, sitting further away from you than usual at the far corner of the bar counter. You see him watching you both, and he does flash a teasing grin, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Wait,” you tell Grillby when he turns to go to the kitchen. “It’s...I didn’t….” 

He stops, returning to stand across from you and waits patiently.

You take a deep breath. “I lost a friend.” Grillby nods in understanding, and you think you should stop talking but the rest just tumbles out. “He’s dead,” you say stiffly. “And it isn’t fair. He didn’t deserve to die like that. And then, today at school, there was this huge protest and everyone was yelling at Ms. Toriel and scaring the kids. I don’t get it. I don’t get why we can’t just get along.”

Grillby doesn’t say anything for a while, and you look up, hoping he isn’t bothered by your venting. You find him turned to the side, digging through his pocket and producing a small amulet. It’s a thin, metallic oval with a flame engraved in the center surrounded by strange symbols. “It’s a protective charm,” he explains, “made long, long ago. It’s given me peace of mind in some of my darkest hours.” He reaches for one of your hands and presses the charm into your open palm, closing your fingers around it. “‘My soul, brighter than stars, stronger than storms. I will weather whatever comes. I will not be extinguished.’ That’s what’s written on it, in the old tongue.”

You look down at the charm in awe. “Grillby, I can’t keep this,” you say. “It must be really precious to you. I’d feel bad taking it.”

He shakes his head. “I want you to have it. I think it would serve you better now.” He moves out of reach and you carefully place the charm into your pocket. “Peace is long-awaited for all of us,” he says absently. “Most of us were hopeful that we’d find things on the surface had changed, but I wasn’t quite so optimistic. I might be a bit jaded.”

He looks at the empty glasses lined up on the counter, gazing at his own flickering reflection. “Even so,” he adds with a small smile, “I’d actually feared things would be worse. This is better than what I’d expected.”

You stare at him. “This is better?” 

He chuckles bitterly. “Much better. But only because I’ve seen the very worst that both monsters and humans have to offer.”

You bite your lip. “You can talk to me, too, if you want.”

He gives you a smile that warms your heart. “Another time.” Then he walks away.

You’re disappointed that you can’t help him and reach down to run your fingers over the charm in your pocket. “Thanks for being honest with him,” you hear, and whirl around to see Sans has suddenly appeared in the seat beside you. “Grillbz likes to help people. Makes him feel better if you’re feeling better.”

“I wish I could return the favor,” you say.

Sans shrugs. “You might, some other time.” One of his eye lights brighten while the other dims in and narrows in the approximation of a raised brow. “You didn’t tell me Dustin was your friend.”

You look away and shrug. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I actually thought he’d run away, and I was hoping...I thought he was okay.”

He shakes his head. “It’s alright. That’s rough, though. He seem the type to run away?”

“Not exactly.” You take another sip of your drink. “But we grew up pretty close and it came up a lot. His parents are really strict. I know it bothered him.”

“Sorry to hear that. You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright.” You smile at him. “I’m glad you guys are here. I seem to be spending all my free time in here, but it’s just comforting, you know? I wake up frustrated and upset, but I feel so much better when I get here.”

You don’t know what about your words makes Sans uneasy, but the grin frozen on his face seems a little nervous and he averts his gaze. “Oh, yeah? Good.”

You don’t stick around much later, knowing it’s late and your parents are probably going to be checking in to see if you’re home yet. You thank Grillby for the drink and try your hardest to get him to accept payment for it, but he stalwartly refuses and urges you out the door, telling you to get some rest. The calm feeling you have as you wave from the door disappears the moment you set foot outside, and the climb up the steps is harder than usual, each step reluctant and sluggish. You don’t know when you came to rely on Grillby’s so much, but you have more trouble leaving each night.

You’ve got a lot on your mind; Dustin’s suspicious death, the protest, Grillby’s words to you earlier. You reach down to feel the charm in your pocket again, feeling the symbols engraved onto its surface. You didn’t comment on it, but you thought it looked familiar when you first saw it, and you wondered if you’d seen the language somewhere before. 

You’re fairly certain you’re breaking the “no fire” rule by keeping a charm with a flame engraved on it, a gift from a fire monster, but you’d hate to just throw it away. You intend to treat it with respect and treasure it just as Grillby has, determined to heed Toriel’s advice and not let fear rule you.

You’re not afraid of him. You’re not afraid of fire; fire is your thing, after all. It’s always been a source of comfort. You trust that he’d never hurt you.

You get a few texts from different family members asking if you’re safe and sound at home, and you reply as quickly as you can so nobody gets worried. As you get ready for bed, you hear an ambulance speed past your house, and you get a sinking feeling.


	5. Chapter 5

There are four empty chairs at the emergency meeting that Mara calls the following morning.  One belonged to Dustin, and the two beside it are for his parents who stepped out into the hall earlier when his mother began to sob.  The fourth belonged to yet another magician, a Writer named Janet found burned to death, body dumped in the woods in the shadow of Mt. Ebott.

“We’ve lost another of our own,” Mara says quietly from the far end of the table. “Any lingering doubts that Dustin’s death might have been an isolated incident have surely been erased by now.  These are purposeful, targeted attacks carried out by someone hunting magicians.”  She looks around the room, meeting dozens of frightened eyes.  “Has anyone learned anything that might help?”

There’s a bit of muttering, a few useless anecdotes from Listeners and Speakers who don’t feel completely confident, but when your aunt stands from her seat, the room goes quiet.  “Dustin frequented a monster bar downtown in the weeks leading up to his disappearance,” she says. “Janet was a regular there, as well, but her visits started to taper off.”

“A monster bar?” one of the other magicians asks nervously. “Isn’t that the place run by the fire monster?”

Mara frowns.  “A fire monster,” she mutters. “It couldn’t be….”

“How do we know it’s a monster doing this?” you ask, immediately regretting it when all eyes turn on you, the same pitying looks you’ve been getting since you were just a child appearing on their faces.  “Couldn’t it have been a human?” you try to forge on. “We don’t really have any proof either way.  That’s all I’m saying.”

There are a few heated protests from around the room, people calling you ignorant and childish, and you shrink back in your chair.  To your surprise, your aunt shakes her head.  “That’s a valid point,” she says. “We don’t know yet, and we have to take both possibilities into consideration.  If it was not a monster,” she pauses, looking at the ground. “Then it was a witch hunter.”

There’s a resounding silence, even worse than the one that settled over the room when Dustin’s parents first excused themselves and everyone could hear his mother sobbing in the hallway. Your aunt is younger than Mara but is one of the most talented and esteemed Readers in the area—a canomancer, a Reader of dogs—she’s also highly respected, and people listen when she speaks.

“The federal government outlawed witch hunts centuries ago,” your father says cautiously. “They were forced to disband.  They couldn’t still be operating.”

“They could very well be,” your aunt insists. “This is just the sort of climate in which they found popular support once before, when tension first built between monsters and humans and scapegoats were named.  They accused us of being more monster than human because of our magic.”

She turns to address the rest of the room.  “On the other hand,” she continues, “it could also have been a monster.  The possibility that we’re dealing with magic fire is high, considering the condition of the house near where Dustin’s body was found, and we certainly know there are a number of monsters capable of conjuring it.”

“The queen,” a few magicians begin to whisper. “The queen uses magic fire.”

“So does the bar owner.”

“Dustin and Janet both went there, it must be him.”

“But maybe the Rite of Blood….”

“We can’t jump to conclusions,” your aunt insists. “We don’t know who’s responsible yet.”

You’ve heard of witch hunters, of course, but you were certain they were a thing of the distant, medieval past and not something you had to worry about now.  The accusations the other magicians are slinging around about Toriel and Grillby are also leaving you feeling a bit perturbed but uncertain.  By the end of the meeting, you’re deeply upset, sitting at the table long after Mara and the elders have left and wondering what’s going to happen next.  

Your father puts a hand on your shoulder reassuringly.  “We’ll get through this,” he tells you. “Just keep following the rules.”

“Is that really going to work?” you ask. “If someone really wanted to kill me, I don’t think just following the rules will keep me safe.”

“It’s worked all this time,” your mother says, desperately. “There’s no reason it should stop now.”

You look to your father, brows furrowed in worry.  “I don’t understand,” you tell him. “Why do we have to hide from both humans and monsters?  If humans hated us so much they started to kill us, why’d we even decide to help them by sealing the monsters away?”

Your father doesn’t look at you.  “Because,” he says, taking a deep breath, “a long time ago, we were desperate and afraid, and we were promised we’d be left alone if we helped win the war.  We thought we’d make a friend of humans even if we made an enemy of monsters, and finally, we’d feel we belonged.”  He pauses, shaking his head.   “But if that promise was broken, then it was for nothing, and we don’t belong anywhere anymore.”

*

You tell yourself that you’re not going to Grillby’s.

Every sensible bone in your body is screaming at you to go home and lay low for a while because, if you go, you’ll get careless and stay out too late and forget that someone is running around setting magicians on fire.  You tell yourself to follow the rules for once.  And even though you talk yourself into it, you still feel like you should just walk by, just to see how things are going, so you end up making a detour and heading down the street the bar is on, walking slowly and trying to look casual.

When you see police officers coming up the steps from the bar, you walk a little faster.

Grillby’s is a mess, the door kicked off its hinges, tables flipped over and bottles scattered across the bar.  You notice there are some dark, ashy stains on the floor and ceiling.  There are just a handful of monsters inside trying to mop everything up, and Grillby himself is seated on one of the bar stools with his head in his hands, his normally bright light little more than the subdued glow of dying embers.  

“Grillby!” you call, and he turns to you, something soft and shimmering like rivulets of molten lava running down his face.  He swipes his arm over his face and it fades away as you approach.  “What happened here?”

“Ah.  A bar fight got out of hand and I put a stop to it, that’s all.  Nothing to worry about.”

“Please let me help,” you insist. “You don’t have to say anything, just…let me do something.”

He’s motionless for a while.  You still find yourself unable to Read him, and you desperately wish you could. Finally, he nods, and you thank him, going over to help a pair of dogs trying to figure out how to sweep some broken glass into a dustpan without opposable thumbs.

You must be there for hours, scrubbing soot off of the walls and mopping up spilled drinks, trying to put everything back to the way it was.  Grillby dismisses the last of the monsters in the store and goes to sit down in a booth in the corner by himself.  You make your way over and slide into the seat across from him.

“You okay?” you ask.  It’s a stupid question—he doesn’t look anything even resembling “okay,” sleeves loosely rolled up to his elbows and stained with some kind of alcohol, embers falling off of him and fizzling out on the table.

“Better now than before,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”  You don’t know what else to say, so you just sit there in silence, listening to the soft crackling of his body.

“They called me a murderer,” he says softly.

You look up at him, but his gaze is fixed on the table.

“They said I was dangerous, that I was just going to destroy everything I touched, even if I didn’t mean to.  They said I should go back to the Underground.”

“Don’t listen to them,” you say. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“No,” Grillby shakes his head. “They have no idea.  But they’re right.”

“What?  No.  Grillby, they’re not…”  That same soft, liquid fire appears again, and he turns away from you as it runs down his cheeks.  “Grillby,” you say, heart aching at the sight of his tears.

“I’m older than you might think,” he murmurs. “I was there, during the War of Humans and Monsters.  I fought for the king and for my people.  Surely you know that the war did not end in our favor—we were decimated—but that does not mean that the humans never lost a battle.”  He shivers.  “They say humans never suffered a single loss to the monsters, but only because no one realizes what actually happened.  They didn’t know the cause of those fires.”

Your heart stops.  You want to hear him out and comfort him, but you’re afraid of what he might confess to you.  “What fires?” you whisper.

He takes a shuddering breath.  “The forest,” he mutters. “The forest surrounding Mt. Ebott is a haunted place.  I can’t ever go back, can’t face what I did.”

“Grillby,” you say firmly, trying to get his attention.  You take one of his hands in yours, holding on tightly.  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I _have_ to,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t keep this to myself anymore.”  You wait patiently, watching him wipe at his face with one white sleeve.  “I was there,” he repeats, more to himself than to you, and he begins to describe something straight out of the nightmares you’ve Read deep within him.

*

It’s said that magicians and monsters were once friends.

When the humans cast out their own, condemning them to infertile, rugged mountains and swamps where no one else wanted the land, the monsters took them in.  King Asgore, a creature of benevolence, knelt when a magician woman came to him with three children clutching her dress, and told her that she and her children and her people would have a home in his kingdom.  This was the way of things for nearly a generation, until the building tension between King Asgore and the human king of the land on the other side of the mountain finally overcame the tentative peace and war broke out.  

The war was never in their favor.  Though the battles were long and exhausting, each one ended with the monsters retreating further into their rapidly disappearing territory, until the magicians feared for their lives and fled once again into the wilderness.  This is where they remained, Grillby says, until one day, they returned.

And they began to destroy the very people who had taken them in.

Writers cursed the fields and caused a famine. Listeners heard their battle plans in the rivers and winds and passed them along to the human king. Makers conjured unbreakable steel for the king’s army to forge weapons with. Pained by the betrayal and fearful for their future, the monsters sought a way to fight back. They found their answer in the weakness of the human constitution, the fragility of the body and the transient, unstable nature of human magic.  They learned from the humans who had hunted magicians and had long known how to fight back.  

The answer was fire.

And so, beneath the light of a waning moon, there was a gathering of monsters who hollowed a chamber into the earth to conduct a ritual, combining their magic to create something that could protect them, that could perhaps turn the tide of the war or, at the very least, achieve vengeance against the magicians who had returned their kindness with betrayal.

Grillby says that this was the night he was born.

He was born enraged. He coalesced from the righteous fury of his creators. He embodied their will to live, their pain and their sorrow.  When the time came for him to fight, he stood dutifully at the monster king’s side and gazed down at piles of dust blowing across the mountain, all that remained of those who had come before him, and his fury grew. At sunset, humans appeared at the base of the mountain on horseback, magicians marching at the front with ambitious eyes set upon him. At his back stood a monster village where children were playing and flowers were blooming and birds were singing, and he understood without ever being told the purpose of his creation.

The king told him to burn them, to leave nothing but dust, and so he did.

He descended into the valley and everything he touched caught aflame.  Magic fire leapt from his body and raced along the ground, crept up the trees and circled his enemies, consuming everything, boiling the humans alive in their armor, leaving ugly blisters and charred flesh and so many bodies.  But the magicians who came with them, the Makers and Destroyers and Writers who turned away in fear only to find their paths clogged with smoke and filled with flames—he made sure they burned _slowly_. By the time the sun had fully risen, they were nothing but bones lying in the blackened dirt.

But it was all in vain.  Even with these small victories, the humans continued to push them back until they had nowhere left to run.  When at last they were sealed within the Underground, they cast final, mournful gazes behind them and saw nothing but dead earth and rock.  The forest and their homes and every trace of them was gone, burned away like their hopes and dreams.

Nothing remained.

*

His fingers tighten around yours.  “And I still remember it.  I still see them when I close my eyes, trying to flee but finding no end to the inferno.  I still hear their screams.”  He looks down at your hand, up to your wrist, your arm, stopping just short of your lips.  He can’t meet your eyes.  “You shouldn’t be so kind to me,” he says. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t say that,” you tell him, tears welling up in your eyes. “You deserve it as much as anyone.  You were fighting for your people, Grillby.  You were trying to protect them.”

“We never should have fought.”

“But we did, and we can’t change that.”  You wish he would look at you.  “There were humans who did horrible things in that war, too, and they did it because they thought it would make everything better.”   _They thought they would finally belong somewhere._  “Ms. Toriel told me that she tries to teach the kids at United to think about when they should forgive.  Have you thought about that?  When are you going to forgive yourself?”

Grillby shakes his head.  “I don’t deserve it,” he says again.

“Yes, you do.”  He finally looks up at you, and you offer a smile.  “You’ve suffered enough,” you say. “You’ve carried that guilt with you all these years.  You deserve the peace you fought so hard for.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but the tears have stopped.  You lean in a little closer, opening your mouth to keep making your point, when he suddenly meets you halfway over the table and seals your lips with a kiss.  It’s not long but it’s full of feeling—sorrow and gratitude and hope—and you pull back a little breathless.  “I’m sorry,” he breathes. “Sorry, that was….”

You shake your head.  “That was fine,” you say. “Do you feel better?”

He manages a small smile.  “Just a bit.”  He glances at the door to the bar, letting go of your hands.  “I shouldn’t keep you,” he says. “It’s going to be dark soon, and I won’t be opening tonight.  But I might call in a few favors, get some extra help around here in the kitchen or waiting tables.”  He chuckles, “Stop punishing myself.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” you tell him, heading for the door. “You still have my number, right?  Call me if you need anything, even if it’s just to talk.”

He glows a little brighter.  “Thank you,” he says softly. “Really.  I don’t know if you even realize how much you’ve done for me already.”

Your heart beats a little faster and you laugh. “Glad I could help.”

He sees you off with a wave from the door, telling you to come back tomorrow, and you smile tightly but don’t make any promises.

*

There are two cars parked in front of your house that you immediately recognize as belonging to family members, putting you on the alert.  Your door’s unlocked, and your entire family is sitting in your living room speaking in hushed tones.  When they notice you come in, they all abruptly fall silent and your father catches you by the wrist, dragging you inside the rest of the way.

“What?” you sputter. “What’s the problem?”

“Keep them in the living room,” your grandmother says, ignoring your frantic questioning as she reaches for her phone. “I’ll call Mara, she should be able to do something.”

“What’s going on?” you ask nervously.  Your father’s grip is anxious and almost painful.  

Your mother puts her hands on your shoulders and looks you in the eye.  “It’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s going to be okay, he’s not going to hurt you anymore.”

“What the hell is going on?” you ask, voice rising, and your aunt comes forward, standing just out of arm’s reach as she examines your face.

“There’s a defixio on you,” she says. “You’ve been cursed.”

You stare back at her in disbelief.  “What…what are you…?”  You hear your grandmother muttering in the other room, urging Mara to hurry.  Your uncle has set an enormous purple geode on your living room table and is Reading it intently, glancing up at you from time to time.

“I can’t quite tell what it is,” he mutters. “Some kind of binding spell, made specifically to target magicians.”

“Have you been feeling an inexplicable compulsion to go somewhere or see someone lately?” your aunt asks, placing her palm on your forehead as though trying to tell your temperature, “Have you had trouble using your magic?”

Your mind is still reeling from the shock of being told you’re cursed, and you struggle to answer any of her questions, trying to think back.  Defixios are very old spells, the sort of thing only a skilled Writer or powerful monster could pull off, binding curses that can serve as physical or mental barriers.  You’ve never encountered one before, and you struggle to think back to what little you know about them, when you could’ve gotten cursed in the first place, but you come up empty.

What keeps running through your mind is how badly you want to go back to Grillby’s, how hard it’s been for you to Read him, _the very reason he was born_ , and it all brings tears to your eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to do this to you guys now of all times but I am going to be participating in NaNoWriMo and want to really focus on my project, so I'll be on hiatus until the end of November. Thank you for your support so far and I promise I will be back!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the wait but I'm back now! Thank you for your patience!

 

**From Grillby, 12:19:**

**I wanted to apologize again for breaking down on you like that.  
** **But I also wanted to thank you for being there.  
** **It really did help.**

**From You, 12:19:**

**I told you its fine  
** **You keep bringing it up lol i really wasnt bothered by it that much**

**From Grillby, 12:20:**

**I mention it again because I want to make sure you’re alright.  
** **It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you.**

**From You, 12:20:**

**Just a few days!  
** **Miss me that much already?**

**From Grillby, 12:20:**

**Well, I’d be lying if I said no.  
** **I did promise you a date of some kind.**

**From You, 12:21:**

**An outing actually if i remember correctly**

**From Grillby, 12:21:**

**I was implying a date.**

**From You, 12:29:**

**Aww  
** **Well  
** **That really does sound nice**

**From Grillby, 12:29:**

**...but?**

**From You, 12:29:**

**My life is a little crazy right now  
** **I feel bad because i wanted to be there for you  
** **But things are kind of bad at home**

**From Grillby, 12:30:**

**Is there anything I can do to help?**

**From You, 12:30:**

**lol i wouldnt subject you to that**

**From Grillby, 12:30:**

**I mean it, is there anything I can do?**

**From You, 12:35:**

**Not really  
** **But thanks :(  
** **It means a lot that you care**

**From Grillby, 12:35:**

**Of course I care.  
** **You’re important to me.**

**From You, 13:18:**

**You are too**

*

It feels a little bit like being grounded.

Your parents temporarily move in, determined to monitor you every hour of the day that you’re home, and you’d probably be mad if two other magicians hadn’t been found dead recently.  You’re allowed to go to work—and that was no small feat. Your mother was about to call in and quit for you, insisting you shouldn’t even leave the house, until Mara and a Writer magician arrived and looked you over, claiming the defixio wasn’t fatal.  

(It took the two of them and your uncle working together to find the details. Your uncle set up an assortment of crystals on the table and had you stand behind them as the Writer took a sheet of paper and pressed it to your back, scribbling over it with a red crayon. You just stood there and tried to take it all as seriously as they did.

“It is, indeed, a binding spell,” Mara had declared, showing you the paper where strange symbols had arisen out of the red scribbles as though they were embossed on your skin. “But I’m afraid I’m not fluent in the old tongue. I’m not sure of the specifics.”

Your uncle took the paper from her and set his crystals on top of it, squinting into the facets.  “It’s location-dependent,” he said. “Makes you want to go to the same place over and over again.  It’s probably written down or engraved somewhere at that location, and if you can find it, we can probably remove the curse.”

“That’s it?” you said. “I thought defixios were dangerous.”

“They are,” Mara insisted. “Whoever did this to you is clearly looking for magicians, and this was a trap laid to single you out.  This must be the same thing that happened to Dustin and Janet.”

Your uncle sighed. “Nothing we can do for now. But the good news is it looks like it only messes with your magic when you’re at the place it affects, and since you know about it now, you can consciously fight it and avoid wherever that is.”

“You must know where this happened,” your mother urged. “Think back.  Is there somewhere you’ve been going lately, and you’re not sure why?  Somewhere that makes you feel good when you get there for no particular reason.”

You could think of only one place that fit that description, but you said, “I’m not sure,” still in disbelief. Grillby couldn’t have done this to you; it must be a coincidence. Maybe whoever’s hunting magicians has defixios all over the area, and you just happened to walk into the one at the bar. You know it looks bad, that all of the evidence so far points at him, but as much as his confession to you the other day concerned you, it also made you realize just how much he regretted his actions.  He wouldn’t feel that way while continuing to hunt magicians, would he?  

Regardless, you didn’t want to tell your family; you wanted to figure this out on your own.  You didn’t want to put Grillby in harm’s way because you believed in him.)

Toriel’s voice draws you out of your thoughts and back to the present, and you see her walking towards the staff lounge with a smile, waving at the human teachers she passes.  You’re relieved to see her back to her usual self; the first few days after the protest were hard, and she’d been quiet and withdrawn, even a little forgetful.  She peeks in through the open door and her smile widens when she sees you.

“Just one week until the field trip to the aquarium,” she says as she settles into the chair across from you. “I’m really looking forward to it.  This is the first time I’ve been able to get field trips approved by the district.”

“Really?” you ask. “Congratulations! I know the class is pretty excited.”

“This is going to be their first time going to an aquarium,” she says, and then adds a bit shyly, “as well as mine.  I hope I do alright teaching them.  I’ve read a lot about marine biology in preparation.”

You smile.  “They have little signs that tell you about the animals there, so I don’t think you need to worry.”

“Oh, good,” she sighs, looking relieved.  She leans down to reach into the purple canvas bag she carries all of her lesson plans and papers in—hand-made by Frisk in home ec class, she’s told you, and you suspect she uses it outside of school, as well.  “I hate to trouble you, but might you have time to help me with grading?” she asks.

You smile, taking a pen out of your bag.  “It’s my  _ job _ to help you out; you’re not troubling me.”

“I just wanted to make sure,” she says kindly, though flushes a bit in embarrassment and sets her bag on the table, digging through it. “Ah.  I think I forgot the assignments in my office.”

You shrug. “That’s fine, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thank you,” she says, beaming, and hurries out the door and down the hall.

“That’s Tori for ya,” you hear and whip around, startled to find Sans standing behind you.  He’s got a plastic bag in one hand with Grillby’s logo on it and a to-go box inside.  “Always making sure she’s not inconveniencing people, even if she’s really supposed to.”

“Hey,” you say awkwardly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I was quiet about it.”  He grins, holding out the bag. “Grillbz wanted to make sure you’re eating alright.”

You take the food from him, smiling sadly. “That’s kind of him.”

“Yeah.  So you coming back tonight, or what?”  The words are spoken in a lower tone, more calmly than his usual lackadaisical manner of speaking, and it’s off-putting.

“I….”  You busy yourself with taking the food out of the bag so you don’t have to look at him.  “I can’t, sorry.”

“Why not?”

“My parents are,” you pause, almost regretting putting the blame on them, “concerned.  You know, with the murders.”

You can feel him looking at you and don’t dare to glance up, picking at your fries. “They think he’s responsible,” he says.

“They’re just worried,” you say vaguely.  You shrug, staring down at the table.  “I know it’s not him.  He’d wouldn’t do something like that.”   _ Not when he still feels he has to atone for it. _

“Glad to hear it, kid,” he says, sounding a little more cheerful now, “Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s pretty much pining after you.”

You feel heat rising to your face.  “No way.”

“Yeah way.  So how about it?”  He holds his arms out in a welcoming gesture.  “I can blip you over real quick just to say hi, your folks won’t know the difference.”

You glance up at him now and he looks the same as always, but you can’t help but be a little apprehensive.  “‘Blip?’” you repeat questioningly.

He chuckles.  “Yep.  Like magic.  You’ll be here one minute,” and then he actually vanishes before your eyes and you’re staring at empty space, blinking in confusion. “And then you’ll be there.”  You jump in your seat, startled to hear his voice coming from your other side, and turn to find him standing there, hands in his pockets nonchalantly.

Human magicians with the same magic are called Travelers, able to cross large distances in the blink of an eye as long as they know their destination.  You stare up at him in awe.  “That was awesome.”

His grin widens.  “Right?”

Your enthusiasm drains away as you think seriously about his proposition.  “I really shouldn’t, though,” you say weakly. “I was just about to help Toriel grade some papers—!”

Before you can even finish your sentence, he’s gone again, and you look around the office as you nervously eat your fries.  He reappears in the same spot this time, but it still startles you.  

“She said I could borrow you for a few seconds,” he says, sounding smug. “She said, and I quote, ‘anything for love.’”

You look away in embarrassment.  “I-I don’t know if I can use that strong a word right now….”

“Still.”  He holds out a hand expectantly.

This is a bad idea.  This is a very, very bad idea, and your conscious mind is telling you just as much, but another part of you—and you don’t know if it’s the part that’s bound with a defixio or the part that really wants that date with Grillby—is totally on board.

You blame it on the curse when the unreasonable side wins.  You stand up and take the hand offered to you, and Sans chuckles.  “Alright,” he says, stepping a little closer and putting his other hand on your shoulder, “Don’t let go.”

You’re about to ask him why when you’re suddenly surrounded by darkness, hit by a wall of cold air that chills you to the bone and you can’t tell if you’re falling or flying, just that you’re terrified, until your feet suddenly hit solid ground.  Your senses are met by the soft lighting of Grillby’s bar, and Sans wriggles his hand in your grasp pointedly.  “You can let go now,” he says with a grin, and you slowly peel away from him, still feeling a little shaky on your feet.

“Sans,” you hear Grillby say, maybe about to scold him for something, but he stops when he sees you coming around the bar.  You can’t help yourself as you run over and give him a hug, enjoying his warmth, relaxing into his chest when he wraps his arms around you.  “Aren’t you usually at work at this hour?”

“Taking a quick break,” you tell him. “I can’t stay long, just wanted to see you.”

He’s still in the process of opening for the day; you see a broom hastily abandoned on the floor behind him and feel a little bad about distracting him, but you forget about that when he presses a warm kiss to your forehead.  “Thank you,” he says softly. “That means a lot to me.”

You enjoy each other’s company for just a little longer, gazing into each other’s eyes. Sans clears his throat and you awkwardly step back from one another.  “Are you coming by tonight?” Grillby asks, and you smile sadly.

“I can’t,” you admit. “My parents are...a little….”

He raises a hand, stopping you.  “I understand.”  He sounds disheartened.

“Once things calm down a little, I’m sure they’ll be fine,” you say, “and then we’re going on that date.”

His fire regains that brilliant shine you’re familiar with, making you smile.  You wave back to him and walk over to Sans, but the skeleton gestures for you to follow him, and you step outside the bar door.  “You looked a little sick last time,” he says. “Might be better if we start from outside.”  You nod, following him out the door and up the bar steps, and Grillby’s bar sign fixed to the wall in the alley catches your eye.  You intend to hurry and follow Sans, but he turns back and sees you looking at it.  “We’re thinking about getting him a proper sign,” he says. “Something in neon, easier to see.”

You laugh a little, again looking at the slashes in the wood.  “You find this just laying around somewhere?” you ask. “It looks a little beat up.”

Sans’ smile shrinks just a bit.  “Grillby told me he leveled with you the other day.”  He sounds serious again, keeping his voice low.  “About the war and what he did.”

You meet his gaze nervously.  “Yeah?”

“Then I guess it’s alright to tell you.”  He grins conspiratorially.  “This isn’t just a plain old sign.  It’s got some magic in it.”

You feel a chill run down your spine.  “Magic?” you repeat hesitantly.

“Yeah, you know, like teleporting, except different.”  He chuckles.  “A long time ago, there were humans who could do stuff like that, too, but they’re harder to find nowadays.”

You don’t like where this is going.  “I’ve heard about those,” you say, trying to stay as vague as possible. “They say humans that used magic all died out.”

“Not all of them.”  Sans’ smile seems distant and a little cold, and you try not to show how afraid you are.

“So it’s got magic in it?” you ask. “How does that work?”

Sans points at the indentations at the bottom.  “See those little marks?  There’s an old spell carved into it.  It kinda latches onto people and makes them wanna come back here.  That’s how Grillby keeps customers, you know.”  You must not be doing a good job of hiding your emotions because Sans laughs again.  “I’m kidding,” he says. “It only works on magicians, not anybody else.”   
“Oh,” you say weakly.

“Shoulda seen your face.”  Sans holds out a hand.  “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”  You glance back at the sign, heart sinking.  “Hey, Sans,” you ask, taking his hand and bracing yourself against his shoulder, “why does Grillby need a magic spell for magicians outside of his bar?”

“Well,” he starts, but then cuts himself off, looking away.

You furrow your brows.  “Sans?”

“I think,” he says, “that Grillby might be a little superstitious.  Fun fact, old monsters love prophecies; especially anything that has to do with the Seven.  Ask him about it sometime.”  He pauses.  “On second thought, maybe don’t.  It’s probably a touchy subject.”  He laughs nervously; you see beads of sweat appearing on his skull.  “I’ve kept you long enough.  Let’s get going,” he says, and you nod in agreement, eager to get back.

You feel hurt and betrayed but mostly confused.  The sooner you finish grading those papers, the sooner you can get home.  You have some questions for your family, and you’re not going to take “when you’re older” for an answer.

*

Your parents actually send your aunt to come and escort you back from the school, accompanied by her tiny, extremely fluffy dog that bounds around excitedly.  You walk into the living room to find your grandmother and Mara already there, conversing solemnly.  “Can I talk to everyone about something?” you ask, halting their conversation.  

“Of course, sweetheart,” your mother says, poking her head out from the next room over and coming into the living room.  Your father and uncle are right behind her, and with a captive audience, you feel you can begin.

“Can we talk about everything?  I mean really talk about it and not pretend I’m too young to understand.”

Your mother looks a bit sheepish, glancing at your father, and neither of them say anything.  Your uncle takes a deep breath and holds it in for a moment before exhaling.  “There isn’t much more to talk about,” your aunt steps in. “Until we figure out where you got your defixio from, we just have to keep an eye on your behavior, and there aren’t any new leads on the murder cases”

“I know where it’s from,” you say.

They breathe a collective sigh of relief.  “Thank goodness,” your mother says. “Where is it?  We can go now, Mara already has a counter-spell ready.”

You frown.  “I’m not telling anyone,” you say. “Not until I get some answers.”

“Don’t be childish,” Mara scolds you. “Your life is in danger; the most important thing is undoing the curse.”

“You always do this,” you say angrily. “All of you—you’ve always done this to me since I was little, you act like I’m not allowed to know everything, but I’m a magician just like you.  How am I supposed to stay safe when I don’t even know why I’m hiding?”

“You don’t need to know why,” Mara insists. “You just need to hide.”

“That’s so stupid—!”

Your aunt’s dog starts barking as though it, too, wants to get in on the argument, but your aunt sinks to her knees and puts her hands on its sides, staring deep into its eyes and looking somewhat ridiculous, but you know she’s Reading.  

“I’m sorry,” your mother says quietly. “I’ve only ever done what I thought was best for you.”

“And I just want to know what’s happening,” you tell her. “When Dustin went missing, I thought he ran away, and you know what?  I thought about going, too.”

Your father looks hurt, gaze softening.  “You don’t mean that.”

“You wouldn’t know what I mean!” you exclaim, exasperated. “None of you know what it’s like to feel this left out because you have each other.  I’ve always been the only magician in the room who doesn’t know what’s going on, and you all treat me like I’m stupid just because you won’t keep me in the loop.”

“Again,” your aunt mutters, and everyone stops arguing for a second.  “It’s happened again.”

“What’s….”  Mara begins to ask, but she’s interrupted by a police siren that flies past outside.  Fear constricts your throat.

“Another magician.  Burned alive.”  She lets go of her dog and it immediately begins to chase its own tail.  

You look to Mara.  “Please,” you beg, “I deserve to know.”

The old magician closes her eyes, deep in thought for a few moments, before she gives a long sigh.  “You do,” she agrees hesitantly. “And perhaps now is the best time.”

“We can’t,” your mother protests weakly, but Mara shakes her head.

“They’re right, they deserve to know. Not knowing only puts them in more danger now.”  She puts one bony hand on your shoulder. “Sit down,” she urges. “This will take some time to tell.”

*

Mara paints a picture in your mind of the human settlement in the valley below Mt. Ebott right where you stand today: huts instead of houses and dirt roads instead of concrete.  She tells you that, on a sunny day like any other, six magicians in this settlement gathered together under the direction of their mutual friend, a magician called Rhea.  “This war has gone on for too long,” Rhea had told them. “Our brothers and sisters have answered the call of our king and gone into battle against the monsters. Now, he calls for the seven of us, as well, and I believe we should answer him.”

The other magicians shook their heads in disgust.  “And what do we owe our ‘king?’” the Listener scoffed. “Does he think we have forgotten that he issued a royal decree to hunt us only a decade ago?  It was withdrawn just as the war began because he simply expects us to forgive and forget. But I will never forget cowering in cold streams at midnight with my children to escape wolfhounds meant to sniff us out.”

“They have traded one enemy for another,” the Traveler beside them said solemnly. “In the end, nothing will change. They will meet their end in fire.”

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” the Destroyer exclaimed. “The abomination the monsters made to fight against our people, forged of fire and hatred. It’s no better than the witch hunter’s flame; it’s simply smarter.”

The Writer looked at Rhea in confusion. “You know all of this already, Rhea. For what reason do you still seek to heed the king’s call?”

“He has promised to leave us in peace,” Rhea said. “He said that we will have a place in the kingdom, one that cannot be taken away by the whims of the fearful who speak behind our backs of enchanting their cattle and their crops.  He said he will protect us, that our children will be free to live lives that we never could. He has already outlawed any future witch hunts.”  

“Such peace will not last,” the Maker told her. “We would be no better than the others then, betraying those who once sheltered us. We will be hunted again if we dirty our hands in this war.”

Rhea shook her head.  “We will not dirty our hands,” she said softly. “We will end this senseless conflict without taking another life.”

“What do you propose?” she is asked.

“A defixio. We will make it in the form of a barrier, and we will seal the monsters away, below the earth, where they will never harm anyone again.  It will take a day and a night to complete, and all seven of us must be present to feed our magic into this curse.”

She was met with silence at first, anxious glances.  “Are you certain?” the Speaker asked. “This, too, would be a cruel fate.”

“There are easier ways to end this war,” the Destroyer added. “This defixio may be too dangerous.  If we are going to incite their wrath, we may as well fight in earnest. The beast of fire cannot claim us all.”

“We must not,” Rhea said firmly. “They have already lost so many. This must end in peace.”

“They will hate us,” the Traveler insisted. “Should the seal ever be undone, we may be drawn into the next war.”

“No.  There will be no more war.”  Rhea pressed a hand to her stomach, gaze softening.  “I have Read it; there will be no more war.  Our children’s children will understand when the day comes.  We made this choice for them, for their future.  We must agree to the rite.  We must do this.”

And so, though they were all heavy in heart, the seven magicians agreed that they would convene the following day at the edge of the forest with the king. They would watch as the monsters surrendered, retreating deep into the earth through the caves beneath Mt. Ebott.  They would sit, reciting incantations in the old tongue as the Writer took a burning branch and seared the defixio into the ground, and they would have no regrets because they believed they were doing what they had to for the sake of their future.

And the monsters, sealed into their prison, would later approach the mouth of the cavern in the hopes of glimpsing the moon one last time, but found they could not go far enough to see the sky.  They vowed they would not forgive the magicians who had struck them when they were down, trapping them when they had already surrendered. And even as the centuries passed—even as their pain and their hatred turned to sorrow—they clung to the ancient prophecies and rituals, to a promise made in darkness by those sworn to secrecy.

_ Blood for dust.  The Blood of the Seven will symbolize forgiveness. _

*

“Blood of the Seven?” you echo in confusion.  You remember Sans mentioning something about the Seven, but you didn’t know what he meant then. “What kind of prophecy is that?”

“It refers to the seven magicians who sealed the monsters away,” Mara clarifies. “It’s more of a rite than a prophecy, a ritual intended to formalize the monsters’ forgiveness of magicians for the past.  Rhea made a pact long ago, agreeing that, if asked, the magicians would perform the rite for the monsters.”

“What do they want?” you ask, uneasy, certain you already know.

“Just as the rite says,” Mara murmurs. “Blood for dust.  The descendent of one of those seven—the last of the bloodline—must be turned over as a sacrifice, one life for the countless lost in the war.”  Mara shakes her head.  “Honorbound by the pact, the magicians couldn’t leave the land around the mountain, but families dwindled as they feared being forced to give up their children.  Today, there are only twenty-three….”  She stops, smiling bitterly.  “Only twenty of us left.  And only one family today can trace their lineage back to one of the seven.”  She doesn’t continue.

“Well, which one?” you ask impatiently, and suddenly realize everyone in the room looking at you with pity, tears in their eyes.  Your heart sinks.  

Mara takes your hand in hers, looking into your eyes.  “Hundreds of years ago,” she says, “your ancestor, Rhea, made a choice.”

“No,” you whisper. “That’s not fair.”

She shakes her head.  “If any of the monsters want to enact the rite,” she says, “if they realize who you are….”

“Then why did Dustin die?” you cut her off, starting to hyperventilate. “Why Janet?  They have nothing to do with it, do they?”

“No,” she says sadly. “It’s more likely that someone has taken matters into their own hands.  Without knowing who the descendents are, they’ve simply chosen to wipe out the few of us that are left.”

“It won’t happen,” your mother says, but you can see her trembling. “It can’t.  You’ve followed the rules, you’ve stayed hidden.  You’ve done everything we asked.”

You start to hyperventilate.  

“It’ll be okay,” your father tries to reassure you, but you don’t hear him or any of your other relatives.  

This is the secret they’ve been keeping.  This is the reason you aren’t supposed to stay out late or leave town, why you’re supposed to stay away from monsters and hide your magic.  

This is the source of all of the rules you’ve broken lately.

It’s also probably why you’re going to die.


	7. Chapter 7

Grillby becomes concerned when you stop texting him, which just makes him message you more.

It hurts to read them—heartfelt apologies for things he’s not sure he even did, from offending you to scaring you off, occasional offers for a free drink or a meal, even a few serious “we really need to talk” sort of messages—so you stop even looking at them. You’ve been pointedly avoiding him for almost a week, never going anywhere near the bar and keeping your distance from the monster district as much as possible. After work, you rush straight home and try to find a friend who’s doing something on the other side of town, watch TV, go out and visit your parents, anything to keep you occupied and not thinking about death looming over your shoulders.

You still keep his charm in your pocket.  You know you shouldn’t, but every time you try to put it away or throw it into the river, you stop yourself.  You tell yourself that it’s wrong to throw away something that someone treasured as much as this, that Grillby could still be innocent, that all of this could be a massive misunderstanding you’ll all laugh about in the future.  The truth is that you feel something for him, something strong that lingers even after Mara broke the defixio, so you can’t pretend it isn’t real. You want to have a piece of him to hold onto.

Toriel’s class is going over monster history now, studying the way of life for those alive at the end of the war.  You watch her from the desk in the corner, studying her gentle eyes and kind smile.  It’s genuine, you think; it must be genuine.  Toriel has never been cruel to you, never belittled you or hurt you.  Would that change if she knew what you were?  If she knew who your ancestor was?

The bell rings, startling you.

“Alright,” Toriel says. “We’ll continue from here tomorrow.  Don’t forget to do the assignment!”  The children begin grabbing their books and sprinting out the classroom door, even as Toriel gives a half-hearted chastisement warning to walk rather than run in the halls.  She shakes her head.  “The good weather always makes them so antsy,” she says. “Maybe I should plan an outdoor activity for tomorrow.”

“Ah.  Yeah,” you say uneasily.

She hands you a manila folder full of yesterday’s homework assignments to grade and you take it, edging towards the door as she begins putting the rest of her lesson plans and books in her purple bag.  “Why don’t we enjoy the nice weather, too?” she proposes. “We don’t have to grade in the office, we could go to an outdoor cafe. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Sorry, I can’t,” you say quickly, taking another step back. “I’ll just go ahead and do these at home and bring them back tomorrow, alright? See you then!” You run out the door before she even has a chance to ask you what’s wrong.

You feel bad, rushing down the hallway with guilt twisting your stomach in knots.  This isn’t fair to her, and you know that, but you’re afraid.  Suddenly you understand why your parents act the way they do, why every mention of fire and monsters has the entire magician community on edge.  You think you’ll have to apologize to her later, that you’ll have to treat her to coffee or do something nice when this all blows over and the murderer is caught.

You’re so focused on your chaotic, racing thoughts as you make your way home that you run right into someone and stumble back, catching yourself on the brick building exterior next to you.  An apology is halfway out of your mouth, but it gets lodged in your throat when you see the very monster you’ve been trying to avoid standing right in front of you, offering a hand to help you up.

“Are you alright?” Grillby asks.

You swallow nervously when you meet his softly-glowing eyes and instantly lose yourself in them, sucked into a vision that you Read in the embers.

The battlefield; you see the battlefield in his eyes, in his mind.  He’s thinking of it even now, of standing in the center of an inferno, the sky tinged red with the silhouettes of burning branches snaking overhead, fallen bodies strewn all around him, soldiers boiling alive in their armor, magicians face-down in the dirt.  And he laughs, he throws his head back and he laughs because he knows he has accomplished what no other monster has. He has fulfilled his purpose and avenged his people. He is power and rage and the future of monsterkind and he has won his first battle. 

He laughs, and bright, molten tears run down his face.

And then you’re looking him in the eye again, no longer Reading but simply staring, and you’re farther away than before.  He stands with his hands at his sides, shoulders sinking, flames flickering slowly and solemnly.  You realize you must’ve scrambled back, refusing to take his hand and stumbling away as though afraid to touch him.You immediately feel guilty.  

“Sorry,” you stammer. “I...have to….”  You don’t even finish getting out an excuse, turning on your heel and running away, face burning hot with embarrassment and shame and regret.  

When did you start fearing your own medium?  Fire is your  _ thing _ , after all; it’s the conduit of your magic, your medium.  You wish you could tell him that:  _ it isn’t you.  I’m not afraid of you.  I’m just afraid of fire. _

But is there really much of a difference?

*

There’s another anti-monster demonstration downtown.

You’re at home grading assignments on the couch with the television on for a bit of background noise when you suddenly hear shouting in place of the monotonous drone of the news anchor who was on a moment ago.  You freeze when you see United Primary School on the screen, an angry crowd again gathered on the front lawn.  The shots of the reporter speaking into the camera in front of it as well as the darkening, evening sky make you realize it’s playing live, and you scramble for the remote and turn up the volume until you can hear what’s going on.

“...and as you can see, they’ve returned today in greater numbers,” the reporter says. “Protests by the anti-monster political action group, Humans First, have increased in the wake of ongoing arson and murder investigations that they believe strengthen their position.”

Your heart sinks when you see Toriel standing in front of the doors, her expression solemn and her hands trembling at her sides.  You should be there with her, you think, you should be standing with her and supporting her and the future she wants to have for the children at United.  The camera pans again across the lawn before it returns to the reporter, who has pulled aside a couple protesters to interview.

You see the girl who threw a rock at Toriel and her father again, and your blood boils with anger.

“I don’t hate monsters,” the man says passionately. “I just don’t think they should be this close to us. Did you know that a monster moved into our neighborhood?  There’s plenty of housing right here in the monster district, so why do they think they have to move into where all us normal folks are?”  He gestures back at the school building.  “United’s just the start.  They want to make every school ‘integrated,’ and we’re just supposed to put up with it.  But monsters are dangerous, and that’s just the way it is.  They should stay with their own kind and we’ll all be just fine.”

The microphone is held in front of his daughter, and you catch the hesitation in her eyes as she bites her lip and looks at the ground—the way she jumps when her father’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder—before she answers. “M-monsters make me nervous,” she stammers. “I don’t want my school to be like United.”

Her father nods enthusiastically and exclaims, “And that’s exactly what’s going to happen if we don’t say something!  You’d think the arson would be enough to remind people just how dangerous they are—hell, maybe it will, once they catch that bartender.  We all know it was him.”

You clutch the remote tightly in your hand and glare at the television, unable to believe what you’re hearing.  Do people really believe that?  Do they really think Grillby would hurt someone without a reason?  You know him better than any of them—you have a reason to be afraid—and you don’t think it’s him.

Then again, you’re sitting at home avoiding him and every monster you know, telling yourself you’re not like everybody else yet fearing for your life.  

“They should all just go back underground,” the man goes on. “We locked ‘em up for a reason—!”

You turn off the TV, unable to take it anymore.  You feel conflicted and guilty and sick, and you decide to throw on a coat and get some fresh air.  You can’t believe he’d even bring up the War, or the sealing of monsters into the underground.  You can’t believe he’d say  _ we _ , because it wasn’t him.

Rhea was the one who came up with that idea, and, whether it’s deserved or not, the blame for that falls with magicians.

*

It’s a little chilly, and you jam your hands in your jacket pockets and shiver a little bit when a breeze ruffles your hair.  Things are quiet on your end of town, and with the exception of a few cars pulling into driveways, you don’t run into anybody else as you take a quick walk around the block.  The next streetlamp you come to begins flickering when you approach, and you slow a bit to glance at it.  

“Hey, kid,” you hear, and freeze, eyes wide and body tense as you whirl around.

It’s Sans, which explains why you didn’t hear him coming. His smile seems strained. “Hey, you scared me,” you tell him with a half-hearted laugh.

He doesn’t apologize. “Feel like I haven’t seen you at all lately. You doing alright?”

You shrug. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just busy, you know.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, skull tilting curiously. “You don’t seem busy right now.”

“I just….”  You try not to look nervous when you break eye contact. “Uh.  I guess I’m slacking off right now. I should be grading assignments from Toriel’s class.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with slacking off once in a while,” he chuckles. “I should know.  How about you grab those assignments and we head over to Grillby’s?”

“I probably shouldn’t,” you say carefully. “I don’t wanna get food on them or anything, that’d look unprofessional.”

“Alright. Then leave the assignments and slack off a little more.” He’s fidgeting, like he’s impatient—or like he has something to hide. You try to figure out the fastest way back home as you take a step back.

“How about some other time?” you offer.

“You seem pretty intent on avoiding the place,” he says pointedly.

“You seem pretty intent on getting me back there,” you shoot back.

He doesn’t reply. The lights of his eyes disappear leaving two unnervingly empty sockets. “Look, kid,” he says in a serious tone you don’t think you’ve ever heard him use before, “I know what you are.”

Your breath catches in your throat and your stomach drops. Still, you try to play dumb, managing a weak, “What’re you talking about?” but he cuts you off halfway through.

“Don’t try to deny it, I know what to look for.” He chuckles humorlessly and it sounds a little ominous. “I was pretty jaded about coming topside again, but I did it anyway for a friend. He sent me looking for magicians, and I gotta admit, I wasn’t so sure I’d find any. But here we are.”

You think you already know, but you ask anyway, just to be sure.  “Why’re you looking for magicians?” You can’t meet his gaze anymore because his stare is too unnerving and look down at your feet instead.  

“You can probably guess,” he says. “We’re looking for the blood of Rhea.”

You run.  

You know your chances of getting away aren’t all that good since he can Travel but you can’t just stand there, so you pick a direction and take of sprinting, not wanting to lead him back to your house. You see the streetlamps overhead blinking and feel magic crackling in the air. Panicking, you veer off of the sidewalk and into the undeveloped woods nearby, stumbling over tree roots and ducking under low-hanging branches.  Your legs are starting to burn and your lungs ache but you’re afraid to slow down or even look back and just keep going, just keep moving without any goal but survival in mind.

You think you hear a car engine in the distance and realize you’re going to come out on the other side of the woods. You glance behind yourself to see if you lost him and slow your pace when you don’t see anyone. You bend to grip your knees, panting and trying to catch your breath and sighing in relief.

That’s when someone hits you over the head and you collapse to the forest floor, everything gradually fading to black.  


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops I almost forgot to update today! Happy holidays everybody!

You hear voices. You feel cold concrete beneath you. You try to stretch or sit up and have trouble moving. 

But it isn’t until you smell smoke that you really wake up.

You groan and roll onto your back, eyes fluttering open, and the first thing you see is a graffiti-covered wall, the words “HUMANS ONLY” spray-painted in bloody red. You feel the coarse texture of a rope binding your wrists together behind your back and struggle to sit up, trying to get your bearings. Moonlight shines dimly through a window high off of the ground, serving as your only light. You can barely make out the metallic glint of pipes criss-crossing on the ceiling above you and you smell stagnant, musty air. 

You think you must be in the older part of the monster district at the edge of town in one of the abandoned buildings, the derelict shells of houses and grocery stores left to rot after the first protests broke out and most of the properties were destroyed. You remember watching an angry mob storm what was going to be a grocery store on the news, hassling the reporter and throwing bricks at the unfinished building. They tore the place apart overnight after the construction crew had gone home, and in the morning, there wasn’t anything salvageable left. 

Your parents had watched the broadcast nervously, sighing in relief when the news anchor said that efforts to integrate monsters into surface society were going to be slowed substantially by recent events. You’d been mad at them for looking so happy about something terrible, but you know now they were only thinking of you. They were just hoping for one more month, one more week, one more day when they knew you’d be safe. It makes you feel sick to think about now.

You hear someone talking somewhere nearby but you can’t make out any words. You can make out two voices but they’re indistinct and muffled. You can’t tell if you’ve heard them before. Neither of them are Sans, and you’re not sure if that’s a relief or cause for concern.

“Hello?” you call. Your voice bounces off of the walls and echoes back to you. The other voices fall silent. “Is someone there?” you try, speaking louder. “I need help! I’m tied up in here!”

You’re answered by silence. You try to get to your feet, but your head throbs and you’re struck by a fit of nausea and dizziness before you get very far, collapsing onto your knees. The back of your head still stings where someone hit you.

As you squeeze your eyes shut and try to will the headache away, you think you hear whoever’s outside start talking again, softer this time. You strain your ears and you can make out bits and pieces. 

“...have to do this. This is what generations before us have….”

“...not sure...you know I’m….”

“...making up for it, you understand? This is how you make it right.”

There’s a long pause. Suddenly, a door creaks open on the other end of the room and you lift your head, relieved. “Hey!” you say. “I’m in here!”

No one comes in. You see a faint light just beyond the door and the smell of smoke grows stronger. Something bright flies through the open doorway and lands on the floor in the middle of the room, exploding as it hits the ground, and you reel back from the burst of heat and light, eyes widening as a fire begins to spread. 

“No, please!” you cry, “don’t leave me in here!” 

The door silently shuts. You hear chains rattle and a lock click into place before a car engine starts up and slowly fades into the distance. 

You can’t believe it. You’re really going to die. After all this time, after all the years you spent frustrated and confused and begrudgingly obeying every rule your parents set for you, you’re really going to die because of the few weeks you decided to live a little. You don’t even know whose fault this is, who you should be mad at, the faces of your parents and Grillby and Sans running through your mind.

The fire rises, twisting and twirling into starbursts of light that flick embers onto the walls and ceiling.  _ Magic fire, _ you realize.

Tears burn at the corners of your eyes. It can’t be Grillby. It can’t be. You refuse to believe it. You think of sitting at the bar, laughing and talking, looking at the glinting lights of his eyes as they softened and looked back at you with what you know now was affection. You think of the way he makes your heart beat faster, how warm his hands are, how beautiful his fire is. 

You remember him crying when he told you about the war.

_ It can’t be him. _

There’s a loud bang on the door that makes you jump, and you squint through the inferno but can’t make out much of anything. Smoke is starting to fill the room and you start to scoot back towards the window, coughing, trying to hide your nose against your shoulder. 

You hear footsteps. You wonder if whoever put you in here is going to wait around to make sure you die. There’s a scraping sound, like something heavy moving across the ground outside.

Suddenly, you hear someone land in the room, falling through the window. You turn and see Frisk.

“Oh, god. Frisk, what are you doing here?” you cry, horrified. They cover their face with their sleeves and run over to you, dragging you against the wall with the window, and pull at the ropes around your wrists. “Why aren’t you at home? Where’s Toriel?” 

You don’t get an answer until you feel the ropes slide off of you and rub your sore wrists. Frisk kneels beside you and starts signing, their movements slowing at the blank look on your face. You desperately wish you’d worked on learning sign language earlier, not that it matters now; smoke is filling the room and there’s no time for questions. You look around the room desperately for a way out, your eyes lingering briefly on the door you assume you heard them banging on earlier, probably locked from the outside. All that’s left is the window.

“You have to go get help,” you tell them.

Frisk pales, shaking their head vigorously.

“You have to,” you say firmly. “I’m gonna lift you on my shoulders, and you’re going to go back out the window. Run as fast as you can, okay? I’ll be alright.” You try to smile convincingly. The smoke is getting thicker. 

Frisk’s lower lip is trembling but they manage a nod and climb onto your shoulders. You have to steady yourself against the wall, knees shaking. You feel Frisk’s weight disappear as they hook their arms through the window and struggle to lift themselves out before they disappear on the other side. 

You slump back to the ground, holding your head in your hands. At least one of you is going to make it.

You gaze at the fire creeping steadily closer, blackening the walls and floor. It weaves into intricate shapes before your eyes, eager to be Read. You see the wings and triangles of the royal family’s crest raining sparks as it collapses in on itself and flies apart into little stars, two and then four and then ten. You count twenty-four of them hanging in the air and you’re confused by how stable they are, remaining even as the flames beneath them turn into other shapes, though two of them begin to fade away and a third one begins to dim. 

You see a battle play out before your eyes but it looks like without monsters. Human shapes wielding swords and spears advance on their own kind, but these humans have no weapons. They raise their hands and cause clouds to gather and lightning to strike. They conjure walls out of the earth. They vanish in the blink of an eye and reappear behind their enemies.

You think you’re seeing magicians fighting witch hunters, but you don’t know why.

You huddle in the corner of the room, the heat unbearable. Embers land on your arms and burn your skin. Your vision is clouded by smoke. You can’t Read anymore. You think you understand now what Mara meant when she spoke of fire, the pain and the terror and the hopelessness that makes magicians fear it.

With trembling fingers, you reach for the charm in your pocket that Grillby gave you and hold it tightly to your chest. You wish you would’ve been able to see him one more time. You wish you would’ve tasted his fries again. You wish you would’ve gone on that date. You’re afraid, but more than that, you’re filled with regret. 

You’re startled when the charm begins to glow, a faint light emanating from the metal that pushes through the smoke. The sweltering heat from the fire lessens into a bearable warmth and your eyes widen when you realize you can see clearly again, and the flames are recoiling away from you as though frightened.

You slump back against the wall, too worn out to Read or even stand, and watch the fire flickering and coiling around itself in confusion, darting towards you only to jump back when it reaches the light the charm gives off. Distantly, you think you hear footsteps. Someone rams into the door, rattling the chains on the other side. You wonder if Frisk is okay. You hope they got home safely.

Suddenly the door flies off of its hinges and falls flat on the concrete floor. Fire surges towards you, dulling slightly but ignoring the charm’s power, and you’re filled with terror for half a second before you recognize him.

Grillby lifts you off of the ground and cradles you in his arms, holding you so tightly it almost hurts. You hear his heartbeat loud and rapid with your ear against his chest. “You’re going to be alright,” he says, so quietly you almost don’t hear him. “You’re going to be okay.” You hear his breath hitch in his throat and see brightly shining tears roll down his face. Gently, you lift a hand and touch his cheek. His tears shimmer on your skin, warmer than the rest of him, but they don’t hurt you. 

“I’m okay,” you assure him.

He takes a shuddering breath and doesn’t stop moving until you’re out of the fire. You take a deep breath of fresh air when you’re outside, enjoying the cold night chill on your skin. You hear Sans and Toriel and other people crying out to you, but you don’t see them. Grillby crouches on the ground and holds you, keeping your hand pressed to his cheek. It takes Sans telling him that your burns need to be looked at and treated for him to let you go, reluctantly laying you down in the grass.

When you look over at him, he’s still shaking.

*

From time to time, you see a nurse or a doctor peek into the door of your room out of curiosity, staring for a minute or two before leaving. You suppose you can’t blame them when you have a room full of relatives and monsters crowding both sides of your hospital bed, nervously staring each other down. They were even more surprised when Sans vanished before their eyes, claiming he had to go take care of something.

“We haven’t been formally introduced,” Toriel says, unsurprisingly the first to speak in an attempt to quell the tension you feel in the room. “I’m Toriel. I work at United Primary School.”

“Your Majesty,” your mother says quietly, bowing her head. 

Toriel smiles. “Please. Just Toriel is fine.” You get the strangest sense of deja vu. Unfortunately, your mother is unmoved, sitting awkwardly and refusing to make eye contact with either of the monsters. Grillby can’t look your family in the eye, either, his attention solely on you. He reluctantly let go of your hand when they walked into the room and paled at the sight of him, but he hasn’t budged from his spot right beside you, and you see your family’s gaze keep wandering to his flickering form. 

Toriel’s smile becomes strained. “Your child is a very hard worker,” she says lightly. “And the children in my class have grown quite fond of them.”

Your grandmother nods stiffly. Your uncle coughs.

You can’t take the silence anymore. “It’s not them,” you say, looking at your family. “They aren’t the ones going after magicians. They saved me.”

“We know that,” your father says. “And we really do appreciate what they’ve done. We owe them a lot of gratitude. But the Rite….”

“Stop,” your mother cuts him off, her face reddening and her eyes filling with tears. She dabs at her eyes with her sleeve. “I knew, ever since the monsters came up from the Underground, that this day would come. I knew about the Rite. I knew it would be our duty as Rhea’s descendents.” She daringly looks the Toriel in the eye. “But you can’t have them. You can’t have my child. You have to take me instead.”

“Mom, no,” you say weakly.

She shakes her head. “I’ve been preparing for this since the day you were born,” she says, trying to smile at you. “I never wanted it to happen, but I knew if it did, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I’m your mother, sweetheart. I don’t care about rites or prophecies. You matter more to me than any of that.”

You hear a sharp intake of breath and a choked sob. Toriel covers her mouth with her hand, eyes shining with tears. She struggles to speak. “I would never, even in my worst nightmares, think of taking your child,” she says. “Even if you had wronged me personally, I never….” She shakes her head, unable to finish the sentence.

It’s at that moment that Sans reappears in the doorway, scaring the nurses gathered outside in the hall. He has another monster with him, an old tortoise in a khaki shirt, and he looks bewildered.

“Sorry that took so long,” Sans drawls, nudging his way into the conversation. “It took a  _ shell  _ of a lot to convince Gerson to come up here.”

Nobody so much as cracks a smile. Grillby lets out a long-suffering sigh. 

Sans blinks. “Really? Nothing? Tough crowd.”

“I could never do that,” Toriel goes on as though Sans never spoke. “I’m a mother, too. I’ve...I’ve lost….” She closes her eyes for a moment to regain her composure. “I understand.”

Your mother’s expression softens. “But then...the rite….”

“Now hold on just a moment,” the tortoise Sans called Gerson says, barging into the room. He squints at you from the foot of the bed, his eyes widening before he gives you a warm smile. “Oh, yes. Yes, that’s them alright. I can just tell.”

You notice your family collectively holding their breath, your grandmother holding up a shaky finger and staring wide-eyed, jaw dropping. “I...what? Who…?” You struggle to think of the right words.

“What, you don’t recognize me?” He chuckles. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t. I’m your great, great, great, great, great….” He stops. “Bah, you get the picture.”

You blink. “No, I don’t, actually.”

“Grandfather,” Sans cuts in. “Like he said, great-great-great times a couple dozen. Go far back enough and you’re related.”

You’re struggling to understand.  _ “What?” _

Gerson turns his attention to your family, telling them, “I hear you’re all worried about the Rite of Blood, so that’s what I came here to talk about. I don’t much like coming back up to the surface—folks weren’t too kind to us then, and I hear things aren’t much different now—but…” He pauses, smiling sheepishly and scratching his beard. “Well, Rhea would want me to be here.”

“Wait,” you demand. “Can we back up like, a lot? I’m really lost.”   
Gerson makes his way to your bedside and Grillby begrudgingly steps back to let him closer. “Sounds like you haven’t heard the story yet,” he says, a twinkle in his eye.

“What story?”

That’s all the prompting he needs. Gerson settles into one of the chairs by your bed and starts talking.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I'm really sorry about not responding to comments last week/missing an update! The holidays had me all thrown off. Back on track now!

Gerson tells you it started with a woman on a hill, and you see his eyes shining in both remembrance and sorrow.

There was more that happened before then, of course, eons of history recorded on cave walls and scribbled on yellowed parchment, but this story, Gerson insists, truly began when he climbed a grassy hill and found a human woman kneeling in the wildflowers. This was a different time, when monsters and humans maintained a respectful distance from one another. They were neither friendly nor openly distrustful, though they were already wary of one another. They kept to their respective sides of Mt. Ebott, and though there was travel and trade between the kingdoms, it was a rare creature that lingered too far from home.

She was far from the first human Gerson had ever seen, but they were in some distant field beyond what either human or monster would call home, and he was curious.

“What are you doing there?” he called out to her as he climbed the hill (and he insists that he was young and spry and rather handsome at the time). 

The woman was startled to hear him, jumping to her feet in fright. When their eyes met, time seemed to stop.

(You already feel like you know where this story is headed. You expect him to tell you about how beautiful she was, to talk about her hair or her eyes and make poetic comparisons to stars or something, but he hardly mentions what she looked like.

He tells you how every time they looked at each other, it was as if she was looking straight through him and staring into his soul. It was  an invasive feeling like someone had broken him open and was feeling around inside, and he had been frightened at first.)

“I’m sorry,” she said, tearing her eyes away, and only then did Gerson realize he’d been holding his breath. “I didn’t mean to do that. It’s like having a book open in front of me; it’s very difficult not to Read it.”

Gerson was still reeling from from the shockwaves traveling through his body, sparks of magic behind his eyes. He felt her hands on his shoulders as she helped him sit down in the grass and knelt beside him. “That was….” He paused, his words failing him, and he ended up laughing. “That was something else! I was really scared for a minute there.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, softer this time.

Gerson shook his head quickly. “No, no, it wasn’t bad,” he assured her. “Just startling. You’re a magician, aren’t you?”

She looked hesitant, though she seemed spurred on by the gentle smile on his face. “Yes. I’m a thumomancer.”

(Gerson pauses at the confused look on your face and explains, “A Reader of souls.”

“Souls?” you repeat in disbelief. “How do you even do that?”

He taps the side of his head. “Through the eyes,” he says. “She was particularly gifted at prophecy. When she looked at you and you looked at her, she saw into the distant future, though it often took time to interpret what she’d seen.”)

He held out a green hand. “I’ve seen you folks around, but you’re the first magician I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to,” he said. “My name is Gerson.”

She timidly accepted the handshake (though Gerson says she was already rather smitten with him at this point and was smiling back at him). “I’m Rhea,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You never told me what you were doing out here.”

“Oh.” The smile fell from her face. She glanced down at a pile of stones gathered in front of her. “I was just making this for my brother.” She closed her eyes. “He’s going to be murdered by the end of the year, and we will bury what’s left of him here.”

“Murdered?” Gerson spluttered. “How do you know?”

“I looked into his eyes and saw it all laid out before me. There will be a drought, and then there will be a witch hunt. He won’t be the only one they burn.”

“But now you can prevent it,” he said. “The power of prophecy is one of the most marvelous. It means you can do something to prevent what you see from coming to pass.

Rhea added another stone to the pile. “I’ve tried,” she said softly. “But it’s rarely so simple. Something worse always comes.”

(“This next part is difficult to explain,” Gerson says, his gaze on his wringing hands. “We’d only just met, after all. We’d hardly traded a few words with each other, and yet….” A smile gradually works its way across his face, filled with fondness but tinged with the bitter edge of regret. “I was overcome with the desire to do whatever it took to make her smile again. Love at first sight, if you can believe such a thing even happens.”)

“Let me try, then,” he insisted, and he hardly noticed he’d scooted closer until their fingertips brushed against each other in the grass. She only blinked in response, surprised by his enthusiasm, and he grinned. “I’m head of the Royal Guard, you know. I’m not afraid of a few witch hunters.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but when she looked him in the eye, she changed her mind. They sat side by side on the hill, the sun beginning to set above them, in peace and silence for some time before she spoke again.

“It’s strange,” she said, quietly, as though afraid to chase the moment away. “I hardly ever see anything pleasant when I Read, and yet when I look at your soul….” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It makes me think you really could change the future.”

(“Over time, I started to believe I was seeing her soul, too, whenever she looked at mine,” Gerson says. “I could see its glow and feel its energy. I could feel her joy or her pain. Somehow, this connection formed between us.” He smiles sadly. “It was the most wonderful and horrible thing I’ve ever experienced.”)

Gerson found that making Rhea smile wasn’t difficult, but the tears would follow soon after.

They returned to the flower-filled fields near the hill where they’d first met whenever they could, slipping away from their families and duties and responsibilities for a quiet moment together. They listened closely to one another’s offhanded comments about their interests and hobbies and began exchanging gifts soon after. Metal engravings and historical texts often traded hands with extra notes scribbled in the margins, and they would sit in the shade of gently swaying trees and enjoy each other’s company.

“You’re still reading that one?” Rhea asked curiously, glancing over Gerson’s shoulder at a book about the royal family she’d pilfered from her father’s library. “I thought you might be bored with it by now.”

“Nonsense!” he said. “I’m fascinated by history. I think I might’ve been an academic if I hadn’t become a soldier.”

“You still could,” Rhea pointed out.

“Bah,” Gerson waved off the suggestion dismissively. “I don’t have the formal training.”

“I bet you could pick it up easily enough, if you wanted. You’re very intelligent, Gerson.”

He swelled with pride but tried not to show it. “I appreciate you saying so,” he sniffed, “but I’m much more suited for battle.”

He thought he saw her roll her eyes. “Battle,” she repeated in amusement. “Forgive me, but I just can’t see it.”

Gerson smiled. “I’m on my very best behavior around you. Of course you can’t see it.”

Rhea giggled and leaned against him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Gerson plucked a flowering blossom out of the ground, curling the stem so he could tie it into her hair. “There hasn’t been much rain lately,” she says quietly.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “The future isn’t set in stone. Whatever happens, I’ll be with you.”

She sat up straight, taking his hands in hers with a shy smile. But then she met his eyes and her smile vanished.

Gerson saw her lose herself in whatever she was Reading. He felt her soul recoiling, terrified, despair washing over her. “Rhea,” he called, cupping her face in his hands as he tried to bring her out of the vision. “Rhea, what’s wrong? What did you see?”

She clung to him. “No,” she whispered, “no, no, no….”

“Rhea, please,” he said desperately, his soul aching with helplessness. 

“Gerson,” she cried, “you were…you all were...I couldn’t find you, couldn’t reach you.” She buried her head in his chest. “Why would I do that to you?”

“It’s alright,” he soothed, and he hoped she couldn’t feel him trembling as he wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t know what to do, how to help, how to make it right. “Don’t think about it right now, give yourself time to rest and then you can interpret it.”

“I know what I saw,” she said hoarsely. “I’m going to do something terrible.”

Gerson shook his head. “No, you won’t. Look at me.”

Hesitantly, she raised her head.

“We’re going to be alright,” he said. “I trust you.”

She Read something again, but it must’ve been something different the second time. She relaxed, shutting her eyes and letting him run a hand through her hair and whisper to her soothingly. She didn’t cry anymore.

Her soul was not bright with relief but hardened with resignation.

(“She Read that she was going to do something bad?” you ask. Gerson nods. “Then what did she Read after that?”

He’s quiet for a minute before he answers, “The reason why she did it.”)

*

The drought came not long after. Water was scarce and the crops began to die, leading to famine throughout the countryside. Gerson met Rhea at the edge of the field, the leaves dry and brown, the flowers withered and dying. She told him that Makers in her village had offered to conjure water for people to use, but they had been chased out and accused of trying to poison the nobility. People died needlessly out of pride and distrust.

She was certain the witch hunters would come that night, so he asked her to lead him to the village.

They were both given a wide berth as they walked the dirt road into the village, terrified townsfolk clutching their children close. Rhea paled at the sight of her door broken in and rushed into her house to find plates broken and chairs overturned.

There were three of them. They wore dark robes and carried both swords and royal edicts from the king, proclaiming that magicians were believed to be the cause of the drought, a ploy to gain influence by providing water in a crisis of their own creation.

Rhea’s brother tried to reason with them, but one of them grabbed his forearm and began dragging him out of the room, claiming that the king had ordered their removal from the village and that they would all be tried and punished accordingly.

Gerson stepped in front of the door. “Does your king often persecute his own people?” he asked. 

The hunters paled at the sight of him, whispering anxiously amongst themselves. “This doesn’t concern you,” one of them said.

“It most certainly does,” he scoffed. He felt Rhea’s hand resting on his forearm, her body trembling and her soul twisted in fear. “The drought is simply a force of nature. There’s no reason to blame the magicians.”

“You would sympathize with them,” the hunter sneered. “They say magicians are abominations descended from unions of human and monster. That’s why they can use magic.”

“What does it matter where their magic comes from? You should be grateful they feel they should use it to help you when this is how you thank them.”

They drew their swords. “You’ll get out of our way, or you’ll be cut down with the rest.”

“Gerson, wait,” Rhea whispered fearfully.

He glanced back at her. The worry in her eyes—for her family, for his safety, for their future—was all he could think of.

(Gerson stops talking suddenly. The room falls silent. You speak up because you’re afraid no one else will. “What happened?” 

He sighs tiredly and leans forward in his chair, a hand pressed to his forehead. “I killed them,” he says. “And I can say it was in self-defense, or to protect the woman I loved and her family, or any other excuse, but that doesn’t change the outcome.”

You see Toriel lower her head sadly, as though she already knows this story.

“There was outrage; the human king interpreted this as a declaration of war. King Asgore and Queen Toriel tried to negotiate peace for a time, but it was futile. Hostility between our people continued to grow until the inevitable happened.”

“The War of Humans and Monsters,” your mother says quietly.

“Gerson,” Toriel cuts in, “you are not to blame for the war. There were many things that happened, well before and longer after that, that led to those dark days.”

“I like to think that, too,” he mutters. “I’d like to think that it didn’t matter, that it was going to happen either way. But we can’t know now.”)

*

Gerson was present for every major battle, on the front lines trying to drive the humans back and carrying the wounded back to safety. At nightfall, he walked through piles of dust, all that remained of his fellow soldiers, with a heavy heart and struggled to remember what the world looked like before it had been engulfed in war. 

His secret meetings with Rhea persisted through even the toughest of times, when food was scarce and ashes rained down from the mountain. They met when the moon was shrouded by dark clouds, afraid to be seen, and they held each other but rarely spoke. There was nothing to say, and they both feared that whatever words they had might be their last. 

When magicians began to join the war effort, Gerson dreaded each and every battle. In desperation, Queen Toriel had gathered her advisors together and forged a living weapon in the hopes of saving her people, a creature with a body of magic fire that left nothing but ashes in its wake. The hilly meadow where Gerson and Rhea first met was inevitably reduced to cinders, but Gerson still went back to it that night, stepping carefully through still smoldering embers and charred trees.

For the first time, Rhea was not waiting for him there.

His fears that the idle chatter, laughter and teasing from brighter days would be their last words to one another came to pass. They never saw each other again.

*

Gerson closes his eyes and leans back as though that’s where the story ends.

“Did she die in the war?” you ask softly.

“No, no. According to records from the settlement, she lived a good, long life.”

You frown. “Then why….?”

You put it together on your own before he answers; you remember what ended the war. Gerson opens his eyes and stares hard at the ceiling. “Because I was sealed in the Underground by a magical barrier,” he says. “One that she knew all along she would create. That’s what she Read in my soul before the war.”

You bite your lip. “Do you blame her for doing it?”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. I felt betrayed at first. I resented her for a time. But in time, I understood. We all did.”

Toriel comes to stand beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Rhea had a gentle soul,” she says. “She wanted nothing more than peace for all of us. The barrier trapped us, yes, but it was meant to protect both monster and human, to separate us until we could both forgive. Her intention was to lower the barrier later in life, but…” She smiles sadly. “I know we were just as guilty as the humans when it came to holding onto our grudge. We were determined not to forgive them, and I can only assume the humans felt the same. Rhea and the other six magicians passed away long, long before the barrier could reasonably be removed, leaving us in the Underground far longer than she ever intended.”

You nod, finally starting to understand, but something still doesn’t make sense. “Wait, but you said we’re related,” you trail off.

Gerson brightens immediately at the mention. “Ah, yes,” he says. “It’s funny, that’s the very thing that led me to understand and forgive Rhea. Without the chance to speak to her, I was left confused and hurt. Years went by and all I could think was that she’d forsaken me.” He smiles the way he did when he first started talking, fond memories playing out before his eyes. “But then something strange happened. I started getting older.”

You furrow your brows, uncertain as to why aging would be unusual. 

“He’s a boss monster,” Sans explains. “They grow to adulthood and then stop aging until they have children.”

Gerson nods. “It came as a shock, but there was no mistaking it; somewhere out there, I had a child, and there was only one person I could have had that child with.” He slowly gets to his feet and shuffles over to you, putting a hand on your forehead affectionately. “I probably seem like a stranger,” he says, “but I’ve waited a long time to see my family again. I hope you don’t mind having an old tortoise like me around.”

He is a stranger, but there’s something familiar about him, something that makes you feel safe with him there. “I don’t mind at all,” you say, smiling, “Grandpa.”

He looks perplexed for a minute, frowning thoughtfully. “Well, you’re missing quite a few ‘greats’ there,” he says, “but close enough.” 

“So you’ve forgiven us,” your mother says, finally dropping back into her chair and letting out a relieved sigh. “You aren’t interested in enacting the rite because you don’t feel the need to.”

Toriel smiles, and you see your mother return it with a heartfelt one of her own. 

“So,” you say leadingly, glancing at your family, “no more rules, right?”

Your mother scowls. “There are still hunters running around out there,” she says sternly. “All of the same rules still apply.”

“Except the fire one, right?” you ask, glancing at Grillby. “He saved my life.”

Her scowl lessens as she looks at him, but you still see worry on her face. Gerson didn’t mention Grillby by name when he talked about the monsters creating him to fight magicians in the war, but you think she might have some suspicions. You’re surprised when she nods. “Alright. You’re no longer banned from fire.”

You look at Grillby excitedly and he beams. 

You’re not worried. You’ve got all the information you need now, more family than you thought you ever knew you had, and the ability to go on a date with the nice bartender you’ve been crushing on for weeks without breaking at least one of the rules. All the witch hunters in town showing up couldn’t dampen your mood right now.

Grillby takes your hand in his, smiling. 

(When Gerson struggled to explain to you what he felt for Rhea, that powerful connection that made him want to make her happy, you didn’t think it was difficult to understand at all.

You knew exactly what he meant.)


	10. Chapter 10

The bell rings and children fill the halls of United Primary School, racing each other out to the parking lot.

Toriel watches them squeeze through the classroom door with a fond smile on her face despite her gentle reminder about a test next week going unheard. “They look almost as excited as you to get going,” she teases with a soft laugh, watching you hurriedly collect leftover papers from a drawing exercise earlier left on the desks. 

You glance up at her, smiling sheepishly. “Can you blame me? Things have been so awful lately.”

“I don’t blame you at all.” She takes the stack of unfinished doodles from you and sets them on her desk. “But take care, please. Whoever is responsible for the murders is still out there somewhere.” She frowns, an uncharacteristically solemn look appearing on her face. “We don’t know if they have any idea that you survived, but if they do, they’ll certainly try again.”

“I won’t do anything reckless,” you assure her. You glance over the room one last time to make sure everything’s in order and follow her out into the hallway, heading towards the teacher’s lounge. You notice protesters gathered outside as you look out the window, dejectedly standing across the street from the school with their picket signs, “Father of the Year” and his rock-throwing daughter at the front of the pack yet again. You still hate seeing them there, but you’re thankful they’re at least respecting Toriel’s wishes and not blocking the door. “Are they ever going to leave?” you mutter.

Toriel follows your gaze. “Probably not,” she says, giving you a tired smile. “They believe that there’s some danger nobody else can see and they want to protect their families.”

“I wish I was as mature about this as you. It just makes me mad.”

Her smile weakens, lips stretched into a thin line. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m angered seeing them there, too. But my anger isn’t so great that I’d lash out at them; that only proves them right, doesn’t it?”

She holds the door open for you when you get to the teacher’s lounge. She divides up your share of the homework to grade and tells you about the lesson plan for tomorrow, but you struggle to give her your total attention with so much on your mind. Eventually, you ask her, “How do you win with people like that?” 

Toriel pauses thoughtfully, resting her elbows on the table and steepling her fingers. “You can’t really think of it as a battle,” she muses. “That’s what they want. You have to remember that they’re people with families and hopes and dreams, just like you.”

“So...there is no winning?”

She chuckles. “Rhea believed that love would win when the time came.”

“That’s really vague.”

“Prophecy often is.” She places a hand on your shoulder before you get up to leave, expression softening. “They might be hurt and suffering, too. Maybe they feel trapped somehow. The best thing we can do is assure them they don’t have to be afraid.”

You wish you had Toriel’s saintly, seemingly endless patience. You think you’ve seen her really, truly angry just once in your life during the first protest on school grounds, and even then she managed to look those people in the eye without raising a hand against them. You wonder if you can apply her advice to witch hunters, too, but you struggle to make it work in your head.

Like the protestors, the witch hunters probably think they’re protecting themselves and their loved ones, too. Unlike the protesters, they’ve killed innocent people. You have a hard time empathizing. 

Toriel and Gerson seem to think that love has some magical properties you aren’t aware of. But even if it does, you’re not sure it can handle everything it’s up against.

*

SPAGHETTI rises out of the concrete jungle of the monster district glowing like a street full of Christmas decorations with its looping explosion sign and three neon arrows positioned alongside the door in case someone should miss the first two. The tablecloth is patterned like a red checkerboard and there are faded paintings of the Italian countryside on the walls, but there are also Japanese folding fans and sombreros. It seems like the interior decorator changed their mind a few times when trying to come up with a theme. The man waiting at the door to greet diners leads you past hot pot tables, hibachi grills and an enormous fish tank into what you can only guess is a private dining area in the back, curtained off from the rest of the restaurant. 

Grillby is already there. He sees you coming before you reach the table because he keeps looking up from the menu and glancing around a little nervously, but he relaxes when he lays eyes on you. You feel your heart pounding in your chest the closer you get and a smile works its way across your face. You can’t believe this is actually happening. He smiles and his whole face glows brighter when you sit down across from him.

“Hi,” you say, trailing off helplessly when nothing else comes to mind. He’s wearing a gray sweater over a white button-up shirt. “Aren’t you hot in that?” you blurt, desperate to find something to talk about.

The flames around his face shift in a manner that reminds you of someone raising a brow in amusement and you’re even more embarrassed. “If I were Sans, there’s an easy joke I could make here,” he says. “I’m not, actually. I don’t notice a difference in temperature unless it’s cold.”

“I didn’t know that.” You blink. “Are you cold? You always wear stuff that really covers you up.”

He shakes his head. “Not at all. It’s just what I like to wear.” 

“Oh.”

Grillby smiles. “Why? Would you prefer I show off a little more?”

You must be glowing with how hot your face feels. “N-no,” you stammer. “I mean yes. I mean I...I wouldn’t mind at all, but don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

He chuckles, his own face lit with a shimmering blush. “I’m teasing,” he says apologetically. “You’re really cute when you blush.”

“So are you.”

You both laugh self-consciously and stare down at the menus. You never knew spaghetti could be incorporated into chips and dip or be deep-fried into “spaghetti rings,” but those are both choices in the appetizer section.

“What are we supposed to talk about?” you ask nervously.

He glances up from his menu. “Whatever you’d like,” he says. “There isn’t a code of date conversation that I’m aware of.”

You shrug. “I know, but I saw you almost every day for a little while. We’ve already talked a lot. I don’t know what else to say.”

Grillby reaches across the table and takes your hand in his, enveloping it in warmth. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I’m enjoying just being here with you.”

You look up at him shyly and accidentally get pulled into a Reading, the faint embers flitting around his exposed flames turning into tiny starbursts. It’s not like anything you’ve Read before; your eyes reach his face and you’re overwhelmed by emotion, feelings you can’t put words to that make your heart race, and you feel tears forming in the corners of your eyes. When you come out of it, Grillby looks startled.

“Sorry,” you say. “I just Read you again. I do it a lot by accident.”

He shakes his head. “That’s alright. I don’t mind.” He looks down at your hand in his. “I think I can feel when you do it. I used to notice something when you came into the bar, this odd, prickling sensation.”

“You knew?” you ask.

“Not for certain. But I felt something.” He strokes the top of your hand with the pad of his thumb. “It wasn’t unpleasant, just unexpected.”

“I’m really sorry,” you repeat frantically. “It’s really intrusive, I never meant to—!”

“I don’t mind,” he insists.

You grow self-conscious and struggle to think of something to say. Grillby’s soft crackling fills the silence and makes it less uncomfortable. “I never really said thank you for the other day,” you say quietly.

The lights of his eyes grow dimmer. “You don’t need to thank me for that. I’m just glad you weren’t badly hurt.”

“I would’ve been, but your charm protected me.” 

He smiles. “I realized that must’ve been what happened. It’s a happy coincidence; the charm dispels magic fire. When I was younger, I couldn’t touch anything without burning it, so I carried it everywhere until I learned to control myself.”

You blink, glancing down at his hands curiously. The flames softly flicker around your skin, pleasantly warm. “I had no idea.” You blush slightly. “You just gave me something so important?”

Grillby turns your hand over in his, gazing intently at your fingertips. “It’s precisely because it’s so important that I wanted to give it to you.” 

The tension between you has evaporated but that doesn’t get rid of the anticipation that makes your heart race. This is what Rhea must’ve felt like, you realize, sitting on top of that hill when a monster came out of nowhere and sat in the grass with her, kinder than most humans she’d met.

A cat monster arrives to take your order and you pick something at random under the “EVEN MORE SPAGHETTI” section of the menu, hoping for the best. She smiles at you both and takes your menus. As your gaze follows her, you notice a few other people in the back with you, a monster couple and a human family seated on opposite sides of the room from each other. Neither of them seems particularly hostile towards the other, but they pointedly avoid looking at each other’s tables. You suppose it’s better than the alternative.

“I feel kind of like we’re under a lot of pressure,” you say.

Grillby tilts his head, looking confused. 

“I mean like the whole Rhea thing and the rites and the prophecies and…” You hesitate. “You know. Love saving the day and all that.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he says gently. “Reading is a peculiar magic. Who knows what Rhea saw that made her say that? She could have meant love in the general sense, monsters and humans coming together peacefully.”

You frown. “Speaking of Reading, I Read something the other day when that building was burning down. I don’t really know what it meant, though.”

Concern flickers across Grillby’s face. “What was it?”

You open your mouth to begin explaining but hesitate, feeling guilty that this mess with the witch hunters has invaded even the most private moments of your life. But you Read Grillby again when you look him in the eye and you feel that same surge of warmth and emotion. You know you’re important to him, and that this is something he feels touched you would confide in him about it. 

Reassured, you press on. “I saw a battle. But there weren’t any monsters fighting, just humans fighting other humans.” 

“A witch hunt?” Grillby guesses.

“That’s what I thought, too.” You set your elbows on the table and rest your head on your hands, trying to remember everything you saw. “Oh, and before that, I saw the symbol for the royal family. You know, with the wings? And stars.” You pause. “I remember counting them because they were there for so long. Usually things fade so quickly I don’t get a chance, but those didn’t go away for a while. There were twenty-four of them.”

Grilby is silent for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. “I’m not any good at interpreting magic visions,” he admits, “but I’m sure I can find someone who is. This seems important. Do you have a minute after work tomorrow?”

“Sure,” you say, a bit reluctant. Truthfully, you were hoping to go back to Grillby’s to relax and forget about all of this, but you know he’s right; you probably shouldn’t ignore it.

He seems to sense your disappointment, smiling as he says, “Swing by the bar. We’ll look for someone together.” 

At that, you brighten up, some of the dread within you ebbing away. “That sounds good.”

When the food comes—and you’re not even sure what’s on your plate, just that there are both noodles and tortillas—you both drop the solemn topic in favor of lighter conversation. You get to know each other, asking about favorite foods and fond memories, questions you used to think of as trivial, but time seems to fly. Grillby tells you about the pride he felt when he first opened a bar and grill in the Underground and he shines like sunset, his flames colorful and animated, flickering in the light. You think idly that any decorative candles you encounter on future restaurant dates are never going to be even half as beautiful. 

You hate to even mention the kidnapping again, but you feel like you need to tell him, nervously starting with, “You know, when the flames were rising and I really thought I was going to die, one of the first things I thought of was you.”

He looks startled. 

“More specifically,” you say, glancing down at your mostly eaten—and not all that bad—tortilla spaghetti, “I was thinking of my regrets. How much I wished we would’ve gone on a date. How many things I wanted to tell you that I never got to.”

You don’t know if you’re Reading or just starstruck, but everything around you seems to fade. You forget about the other people sitting nearby. You hardly smell the food. You don’t hear the clatter of silverware and plates. 

Everything narrows into this moment; into you sitting here with Grillby as he leans over the table, close enough that his warmth reaches your face. 

“You don’t have any regrets now, do you?” he says, the fire around his face turns a deep crimson. You wonder if he can feel whatever it is you’re feeling, too. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” you say, smile widening as it really sinks in, “we are.” You lean forward, too, and speak more softly. “And since we’re already on a date, I guess the only thing left is to tell you...that….” 

You take a deep breath. Grillby waits patiently, smiling at you. 

“I really, really like you,” you say. You’re not sure if your face is so hot because he’s that close or if it’s something else. “And it’s not just because I can Read you. There’s something more to it.”

“Something deeper.” Grillby’s eyes never leave yours as he speaks. “So deep that I don’t really know where it starts. But it makes me anxious to see you, and the moment you walk into the bar, I’m overcome with this feeling that everything is alright.”

You open your mouth to respond but no sound comes out. You don’t know what to say because he just said everything that was on your mind. You don’t think your heart can beat any faster.

“I feel it, too,” he says.

And then, gently, his hand cups your cheek and he presses his lips to yours.

It isn’t like the first time he kissed you, heartfelt but frantic. This is slower and softer, more relaxed, the heat of his mouth soothing and pleasant like a warm drink on a cold day. He pulls away slowly and hesitantly, fingers stroking your cheek. You feel a little breathless when you separate.

“We’re going on another date, right?” you ask.

He laughs. “Well, I certainly hope so.”

He insists on paying. Every attempt to talk him out of it falls on deaf ears. He goes so far as to snatch the bill before you can even look at it and smiles at your pout, promising, “You can get the next one.” You tell him you’ll hold him to it.

You’re forever going to have a certain fondness for SPAGHETTI now that the first in hopefully a long line of dates with Grillby happened there. You think you’ll have to go with a few friends and try the hibachi next time. 

The walk home feels much too short with Grillby beside you, lighting up the sidewalk. He stops at your front door and you catch a hint of disappointment on his face when you turn to look at him. “That was nice,” you say.

He smiles. “It was.”

“I want to do more of that, and less of,” you frown, “you know, the awful, life-endangering stuff.”

“I’d like that, too,” he says. “Let’s see if we can’t figure something out tomorrow,” he offers, and you nod. 

You decide to initiate this time, putting your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. Grillby eagerly meets you halfway, crushing your lips with his, and this kiss is completely different. He opens his mouth and you think you can feel steam against your cheeks. There’s a brief moment of hesitation—you aren’t sure if he’s trying to remain confident or keep from burning you—and then you feel what you think must be a tongue brush against your lips. You let him in and nearly cry out, startled by one of his hands holding the back of your head as his tongue roams your mouth and coaxes yours out further. You feel like you’re overheating, sweat beading along your forehead, but it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.

He pulls away suddenly, and you’re left clutching his sweater, panting, freezing. “I’m sorry,” he says nervously, “I got carried away, I wasn’t...I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“What? No,” you say, confused and almost frustrated. “Why did you stop?”

“It’s,” he pauses, looking away sheepishly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve pursued anyone romantically. Sometimes I’m not very mindful of my own temperature.”

You smile mischievously. “It sounds to me like you just need some more practice, then.”

He stares at you for a long time in silence, and then he just shakes his head, chuckling. “I guess I should’ve expected you to be undeterred.”

“I confessed my feelings to you, like, half an hour ago,” you point out. “I’m not gonna be scared of a little fire. That’s my thing, you know.”

“I’m your thing?” You can hear the smile in his voice.

You feel your face heating up. “Well...I mean, with—with magic, it’s—!”

Grillby wraps his arms around you in a pleasantly warm embrace, leaving you shivering when he lets go. “I know what you mean, I’m teasing you again. I’m glad you Read fire.” His gaze softens. “Sometimes, I think I can Read you back while you do it.”

Grillby tells you goodnight, and you wait until he’s down the block and you can’t see him anymore to go inside, standing with your back to the front door with your heart still pounding, a comfort and happiness you’re not sure you’ve ever felt before blooming in your chest.

You touch your fingers to your lips and find his heat lingering there. 


End file.
